by Jane Shoup
Forzenay assessed the situation, while Kidder rushed to Stripe.
“I have no feeling in my arms,” Stripe replied dully.
“That is a shame,” Kidder replied as he helped Stripe to his feet. “How are you going to have a celebration drink if you can’t lift a glass?” He looked down at the huge man lying dead on the floor and blew out a noisy breath. “So how does it feel to take on a leviathan?”
“Can’t say that I recommend it.”
“Do you think this isn’t your fight?” Xavier thundered.
“It happened so fast,” someone said.
“I’m sorry, Xavier. It looked hopeless.”
Lightheadedness came over Xavier. He needed to get home and have his arm sewn up. “Get rid of the bodies,” he snarled. “Bury them. Burn them. Weight them down and drop them in the sea. I don’t care, but—”
“I’ll do it,” a man spoke up.
Another stepped forward. “So will I.”
Several more spoke up, shamed into action.
“And you are sworn to secrecy,” Xavier muttered as he started for the door.
Men nodded. Most muttered oaths.
Xavier turned back with a renewed surge of fury. “Or I swear by all the gods—”
“Xavier,” Forzenay interrupted before the threat was uttered. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
Ulima looked each of the new arrivals over one by one, sighing and shaking her head with each injury. “Everyone wanted a scar or two to remember tonight by. Was that it? I’ll start with you,” she said to her husband. “Have a drink and sit. That’s a nasty piece of work.”
“The handiwork of an interesting double dagger,” Xavier said, pulling the weapon out and showing it to her.
“How special. A scar and a keepsake. Drink and sit!”
“How is he?” Stripe asked in a hushed voice as he looked at Graybil who was asleep on a pallet.
“He’s had wine of opium, so he’s out,” Ulima replied curtly. “And he’s favored by the gods, is what he is. The blade missed the bowels by that much,” she held her thumb and forefinger slightly apart. It may have nicked a lung, but not enough to collapse it. Enough rest and he’ll be fine.”
“He’ll be taken back to his village,” Forzenay said.
Kidder whirled around to face him. “Why? He should stay here.”
Vincent sat heavily in a chair. “Milainah foretold this, didn’t she?”
Every eye turned to Forzenay. “I knew there would be an injury,” he admitted. “I did not know which of us it would be.”
“But why take him back to Daleog?” Kidder asked. “Did the Seidh say we were to do that?”
“Not we. We go on to Shilbridge.” He looked at Ammey. “You will take him.”
She was stunned. “I don’t know the way.”
Vincent tried to control the anger he felt. “Need I remind you, she helped save our lives tonight? Or that packs of trained killers roam the country?”
“No,” Forzenay snapped. “You needn’t!” He turned to Ammey. “Graybil will tell you the way. You’ll leave when he’s fit enough to travel.”
She realized it was decided. It was already decided. Again. But why? Because it was meant to be? It didn’t feel meant to be from her perspective. It felt more right for them all to stay together or for her to return home. She sat cattycorner from Vincent and watched Forzenay as he went behind the bar. “May I ask—”
“What?” Forzenay prodded when she grew silent.
“How did the Seidhkona save your life? When we first arrived in Vilhae, Milainah said she was glad to see you, but that she hadn’t been certain they would see you again.”
Forzenay carried bottles of whiskey and wine over to the table and went back for glasses. “We had gone to Ghlaxmire to learn what we could of the siege,” he began.
She shook her head in confusion. “What siege?”
He returned with a tray of glasses and sat across from her. “Corin called it an annexation, but it was a siege. We’d spent days in Ghlaxmire blending into the village, all of us separate so as not to be noticed any more than possible. Things were going—” Forzenay’s breath suddenly caught from a pain in his leg.
“I’ll get you next, Forzenay,” Ulima said without taking her eyes off her task of stitching her husband’s wound. “Take some wine now. Stripe, get it for him.”
“I’ve got it,” Forzenay replied.
“Not that. The opium.”
“Not yet,” Forzenay argued. “It dulls my senses too rapidly.”
“That’s rather the point,” Ulima replied irritably.
Ammey poured a glass of wine and offered it to Vincent.
“I’ll take whiskey,” he said.
She poured him one and looked at Kidder who nodded. Stripe had gone after a tray of small glasses of liquid opium that Ulima had already measured out. He returned with it and put one of the glasses in front of Forzenay, who ignored it. “I’ll take some, too,” he said to Ammey. She poured another whiskey and passed it to him.
“It was going well,” Forzenay said, taking up the story again. “We’d gathered a good deal of information.”
Vincent downed the whiskey. “One evening,” he took over, “we all ended up at a tavern where there was a meeting of those who opposed the annexation. It was a big gathering. The opposition was starting to gain momentum.” He paused. “It was a friendly enough atmosphere. It was an anxious time, but it felt cordial.”
Kidder nodded. “Then these drinks, blue drinks, started getting passed out. It was a specialty of the tavern and the drinks were on the house. Everybody was taking one.”
“It was called Blue of the Sea,” Vincent said as if the name held significance.
Ammey noticed the serious, almost haunted expressions on their faces.
“Forzenay, you’re next,” Ulima said, rising to her feet.
“In a bit,” he hedged.
“No, not in a bit. Now. You’re bloodying up my floor.”
Dark blood had saturated his leggings and was slowly pooling under his foot.
“Don’t I always clean it up?” Forzenay asked innocently.
She snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
Xavier put his head on table he sat at and began snoring. Forzenay pushed back in his chair and she knelt to dress his wounds. She started by ripping an even bigger tear near the cut leggings. “You’d best drink,” she warned.
He picked up one of the glasses that contained wine of opium. “I’ll trust you all to finish the story,” he said before he turned his gaze on Ammey. “But was that what you truly wanted to ask?”
She hesitated. “Did Milainah say I was to take Graybil?”
“Yes.”
“Then there is a reason,” she ventured.
“Yes. There is. I don’t know what it is. It may be that something will happen on the way to Daleog that you are needed for.” He downed the liquid opium, trying not to taste it, and then cringed as Ulima poured a burning liquid over his wound. He closed his eyes, already feeling the pull of the opium. She began sewing his leg with quick, sure stitches, just as she’d done numerous times before.
“You’re next, Vincent,” Ulima interrupted. “Drink up.”
“Kidder can be next,” Vincent replied. “He was nicked in the gut.”
“Barely,” Kidder said. “You’re worse.”
Vincent gave him a look. “Go next.”
“Or I can be next,” Kidder said agreeably. “But back to the story.”
“We have to tell her about the Seidh, first,” Stripe said. He looked at Ammey. “You haven’t seen it yet, but sometimes they go into a state where they see things. Especially Milainah. They talk with voices other than their own.”
“Even her face changes,” Vincent added.
“It’s frightening,” Kidder said. “Anyway, the time we were in Vilhae before Ghlaxmire, Milainah went into this altered state and said—” He closed his eyes, wanting to recite it perfectly. �
�Blue drink of the sea, but not. Will burn like fire and rot. Dull gazes of death, I see. Drink not the drink of the sea.’”
Ammey rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. Everything was so much more involved and convoluted than she’d realized.
“It didn’t mean anything to us at the time,” Kidder said. “Not until that night and that drink was served. Once somebody said the name of it—”
“Some downed it without waiting for the toast,” Stripe said. “I was wary from the moment I saw the drinks were blue, but I didn’t know whether to warn people or if I was making something out of nothing. I asked who’d bought the round as if I wanted to thank the man.”
“It was the bartender,” Vincent said. “I remember the look on his face. I warned everyone around me and even knocked it from one man’s hand. We all did.”
“But they started dropping,” Kidder said. “The bartender ran.”
“Drink,” Ulima reminded Kidder, backhanding his shoulder.
He reached for a shot of opium, downed it and grimaced. “You ought to work on that recipe, Ulima.”
She gestured to Forzenay who looked lost to the world. “I put twenty stitches in him and he doesn’t mind. I think my recipe works just fine, thank you. Besides, you wouldn’t want to go liking the taste too much. Now turn this way and lift your shirt.”
“Women are always saying that to me,” he said as he obeyed the command.
“It’s not too bad,” she said as she studied the small gash.
Kidder looked at Vincent. “Because someone had my back.”
“Someone had mine,” Vincent returned. He looked at Ammey.
“What are we going to do without you, Ammey?” Stripe spoke up. “They’ll be nobody pretty enough to distract us when we need it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kidder said sluggishly. “Some people say—”
“Shut up,” Vincent, Stripe and Ulima said in chorus.
Ammey simultaneously smiled and fought an urge to weep. It wasn’t that many days ago that she would have given all she had to escape their company, now she did not want to be without it.
“Hopefully, we won’t have to do without her for long,” Kidder said.
Stripe stood. “I’m whole enough, Ulima. I’m going to bed.”
“Take Forzenay,” she said without looking up from Kidder’s stitches.
Stripe walked over and hefted Forzenay up. Forzenay complied, although he walked like the living dead.
“Those men tonight,” Ammey said, “were some of the best swordsmen I’ve ever seen.”
Vincent nodded. “The best of the best. Or so they claim.”
She wondered if he fully realized how good they were. She’d seen the best swordsmen of the country. Her brothers ranked among the best and the foes they’d faced were that good, not to mention extraordinarily strong.
“Did you notice the marks on their arms?” Vincent asked. “The symbol?”
She nodded. “What was it?”
“Corin’s mark. For his best warriors. His wolves. After they undergo training and pass trials and have so many kills to their credit, they’re ranked as the elite and they earn the privilege to be marked with the rune of the Uraz. A painful process, I understand.”
“I’d say so,” Ulima spoke up. “This needle? This is nothing. Imagine one much larger, driven deep into the flesh to cause a hole. They ignore the blood running from it and do it over and over. Then they rub a dye in.”
Ammey cringed at the thought. “The Uraz?” she asked, trying to recall what it stood for.
“It symbolizes masculine strength and power,” Vincent replied.
“You’re done,” Ulima said to Kidder.
“So I am,” he agreed sluggishly.
“Come on, my friend,” she said, helping him to his feet. “Let’s get you to your own bed so you can get a good night’s rest.”
“I should stay with Graybil in case he wakes,” he objected in a slurred voice.
“He’ll be watched,” she said, keeping him moving forward. “Never you worry.”
He grinned. “You say that, Ulima,” he muttered. “I like that you say that.”
When they were gone, Ammey noticed how intense Vincent’s gaze was. It set her heart to racing.
“You made the difference tonight,” he said.
“You saved my life first. Twice, actually.”
“It’s what we do for one another,” he said. “No scores, no debts.”
“Then what was that about me owing you?” she asked lightly.
He leaned in. “What if we say you do? And that I owe you.”
The passion in his expression robbed her of breath. She looked away. If she continued to look at him, she’d weaken and end up in his arms begging him not to let go. “I have to do what they tell me, don’t I?” He reached over and took hold of her hand. She looked at their entwined hands and then up at his face longing to lean over and kiss him. She heard Ulima’s footsteps returning with a sense of dread.
“We’ll be together again,” he said quietly. “That’s what I know.”
She nodded.
“You feel it, too?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Alright, time for you,” Ulima said as she walked through the room. “Drink up.”
Vincent withdrew his hand, picked up the small glass of opium and downed it.
“You should go get some sleep,” Ulima advised Ammey. “It’s been quite a night.”
“I’m alright,” she said to the older woman. Then she looked back at Vincent. “Do you need to hold my hand while she sews?”
His eyes were already glazing over. “It’s one of the few times I don’t need to hold your hand.”
Ulima mouth twisted in an attempt not to smile. “Go on,” Ulima urged her gently. “Off to bed.”
Reluctantly, Ammey got to her feet.
“Goodnight, Ammey McKeaf,” Vincent said with the barest hint of a smile playing on his lips.
She left the room, fully aware she was being watched. For once, she was glad of it.
Chapter Ten
Ammey woke in the morning and rolled onto her back. She stared at the beams across the ceiling, but in her mind’s eye was Vincent standing before her as Tariq fell. The memory made her breath catch and her stomach tighten.
Vincent.
She curled back onto her side again and gingerly ran her fingers over her throat. It felt tender to the touch, but she had less healing to do than the others. She got up and readied herself for the day. The inn was quiet as she went toward the kitchen. She peeked into the tavern and saw Graybil sleeping in the same spot. He was so still and not snoring. Fearing the worst, she crept closer until she saw his chest move and then she exhaled with relief.
She went on to the kitchen, more anxious than ever to see the others, but only Ulima was there. She was leaning against the counter, deep in thought. “Good morning,” Ammey greeted. “Where is everyone?”
Ulima started and then looked at her with an expression of regret. “Gone, I’m afraid.”
Ammey gawked. “Gone?”
“They had to get to Shilbridge.”
Ammey went to the kitchen table, pulled back a chair and sat. There was a fire crackling in the hearth and the scent of freshly cooked food lingering in the air, but she suddenly felt cold and empty. It was an emptiness food would not touch. “I didn’t think it would be today.”
“Neither did I. You’ll stay until Graybil is strong enough to travel,” Ulima said as she busied herself making tea.
Ammey felt a stirring of hope. “Will they be back by then, do you think?”
“Not likely. If I know Graybil, he’ll be fit enough for riding soon. He’ll only be riding in the back of the wagon.” When Ulima came to the table, it was with a mug of strong, hot tea and a thick slice of warm oat bread which she put in front of Ammey. She sank into a chair, her gaze now fixed on the bruises on Ammey’s neck. “You said that devil choked you, but you must have nearly died.
”
Ammey nodded. “Had it not been for Vincent—”
“Vincent,” Ulima murmured softly. “Oh, Ammey, these men—”
Ammey knew a warning was coming.
“They are dear friends and I hold each in high esteem, but they are not simple. Every one of them has had tragedy in their lives and, because of it, they ended up where and who they are.”
“I know,” Ammey replied, although, in truth, she knew very little about any of them, even the one she’d fallen in love with.
“There are choices ahead of you,” Ulima continued with her face full of compassion. “So many choices. Easier, happier choices. Theirs is not the life for you.”
“Things could be different,” Ammey said beseechingly. “One of them could choose a different sort of life.”
“Perhaps. One day. But we are at the beginning of a bad time, I fear.”
Ammey cupped the mug and the warmth penetrated her hands. The bread smelled delicious, but she’d lost her appetite.
“There’s something else,” Ulima said.
Ammey looked up, concerned by her tone. “What?”
“Forzenay said you’re to take Graybil home, but he must be back by the next full moon.”
“Why?”
Ulima shook her head and shrugged. “One of their lives depends upon it.”
“Which—” Ammey began.
“That’s all he said. I promise you. That is all he said.”
The grim warning had to have come from Milainah. “Am I to come back, as well?”
Ulima looked pained. “No.”
The disappointment Ammey felt was crushing. Had she been pushed aside because she too much trouble? Too much distraction?
“And Graybil probably won’t wish to,” Ulima said. “Explain what I just told you, but not too soon. Allow him the rest and the peace of mind he needs to heal.”
“I wonder why I’m not to come back with him.”
Ulima reached across the table and placed her hand on Ammey’s arm. “It’s likely we will soon be at war. If so, all we can do is to get through it. Do our parts. I know it’s not what you want to hear. It’s not what I want to tell you.”
Ammey nodded slowly. “I am very glad I met you. Your strength is an inspiration.”
