The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  Camron didn’t move. He held perfectly still, letting his hot skin be cooled by the breeze the arrows created. Broc lay flat against the rock. His face was dark with blood. He was breathing, though. Camron didn’t take a breath himself until he was sure of that.

  Still the arrows kept coming, finding their marks as surely as prodigal sons returning home. More harras fell. They thrashed on the ground at Camron’s feet; their features slowly re-forming, their cries becoming lower, more human. Within seconds none were left standing. Scattered, lying low, playing possum, wounded, or dead: Camron didn’t know or care. He was so weak, it took all his strength to stop his legs from buckling beneath him.

  The hail of arrows tapered off. An order was shouted. Tack jingled. Camron raised his head in time to see a man riding clear of the rocks. A second riderless horse trailed behind. As Camron watched, the man slipped a shortbow into his saddlebag. Then he looked up and smiled.

  Ravis of Burano inclined his head. “Gentlemen,” he called. “Forgive me, I am a little late.”

  A snap of his wrist brought a ring of archers into view. Like the harras before them, they appeared from behind rocks and trees. They carried staved longbows taller than themselves. Less than a dozen in all, they held their positions, arrows nocked and ready.

  As Ravis drew nearer, Camron saw that he wasn’t as cool and unruffled as he appeared from a distance. There was blood on his gloves and sleeve. Sweat dripped from the hair at his temples, and his breath came in quick, shallow bursts. He didn’t waste any time. Drawing his sword, he trotted the spare horse through the ring of downed harras. As soon as he reached the crop of rock where Camron stood, he dismounted, crossed to where Broc lay, dragged his body off the ground, and hefted him over the back of the spare horse. That done, he turned to Camron.

  Arrows shot through the air, picking off two harras who chose that moment to move.

  Ravis looked Camron in the eye. “I would have come before now, only I had business to take care of on the far side of the rocks.” His voice was lightly mocking, but his eyes told a different story. They were dark, shining, filled with pain. As he helped Camron onto the back of his horse, Camron saw where a blade had sliced open a gash in his side.

  Camron didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes, dropped his head against Ravis’ shoulder, and waited to be gone from that place.

  S E V E N T E E N

  I t took Tessa a while to realize she was awake. She was warm and comfortable in a softly scented cocoon. Pain barked away in the distance like a neighbor’s dog: annoying, but not worth making any effort to stop it. In fact, the idea of doing anything other than lying still and thinking of nothing didn’t appeal to her at all. It was only when someone told her she was awake that she actually started believing it.

  “There, there, my dear,” came a gentle voice. “You’re just coming round. There’s nothing to worry about.” A little patting followed. Tessa felt some part of her body being touched, but she didn’t have a name for it just yet. “Emith, hurry. She’s waking.”

  “She’s awake? Thank all four gods. I’ll be right there.”

  Tessa couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed. All this talk of waking up was making her feel as if she had to do something. Bracing those parts of herself she still didn’t have names for, she made a break for the surface. Rolling her neck in the direction the voice had come from, she opened her eyes.

  A large meaty hand slapped against an even meatier chest. “Emith! Quickly! Linden flower tea and hot broth.”

  Tessa’s eyes traveled upward past the hand, the chest, and the neck to the face. Mother Emith. Standing! The shock of seeing such an unnatural phenomenon had a profound effect on Tessa’s brain. Everything snapped into place at once: names of body parts, memories of where she was, how she had got here, and what she had last done and why. She even found her voice.

  “Mother Emith, sit down.”

  Mother Emith looked at Tessa as if she were a kitchen pot that had suddenly decided to talk. The hand descended from her chest and landed, slap, in the middle of Tessa’s forehead. “The tea, Emith. The tea!”

  “Here it is, Mother.” Emith appeared in Tessa’s line of vision, looking older than she remembered him. Older and more frail. “Oh, miss, miss. Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

  Tessa nodded, even though she knew everything wasn’t all right. Not all over. Her head felt heavy and stuffed up as if there were no room for her thoughts. The muscles in her neck ached, and a niggling soreness was working away at her right hand.

  “Miss, just lift your head so I can slip this under.” Emith held out a pillow. His voice was so gentle, it made Tessa’s throat ache. Already, in the back of her stuffed-up mind, some tiny bit of her knew they would soon be parting. She didn’t say anything, though, simply did as she was told and tried not to let the pain show on her face.

  “Here you are, my dear. Drink up.” Mother Emith bent forward with a bowl of steaming liquid. Tessa moved quickly to drink it—more to minimize the time Mother Emith had to spend on her feet than in eagerness for a strange-smelling, scalding drink.

  “It’s good,” Tessa said after swallowing a mouthful. She knew Mother Emith was waiting expectantly to be asked what was in the tea, how it was made, and in what way it would make a person better, but she didn’t have the heart for it. Catching Emith’s gaze, she tilted her head toward his mother.

  Emith nodded. Laying a hand on his mother’s arm, he said, “Come, Mother. Come and sit down. I’ll turn your chair so it’s facing this way.”

  Mother Emith grumbled a bit, ran her hand over Tessa’s brow, made her promise to finish all the tea in the cup, and then let herself be led back to her chair. She moved so slowly, it was painful to watch. Tessa reached out her hand toward her, wanting to touch the soft woolen fabric of her dress before she walked away.

  Pain sizzled in Tessa’s palm as she straightened out her hand. Although she tried, she couldn’t keep herself from inhaling sharply. Her right hand was heavily bandaged. Only her fingertips were visible from beneath a swath of linen strips. Tessa remembered stabbing the vellum with her brush, feeling her palm burn. Letting her hand fall back against the sheet, she tried not to think about all that had happened. It didn’t work. Her mind showed her flashing images, like sunlight on a lake, of the pattern she had drawn and the things she had seen.

  Tessa drew her body into a tight ball beneath the sheets. It wasn’t fair. She had only just woken up, yet already her world was shaping into something she didn’t like. She had responsibilities now: of all the things that had happened while she painted the pattern, that one fact was perfectly clear.

  She had been brought here to destroy the harras. Stop those who made them what they were. Someone was behind them, turning them into monsters, creating their need for blood, and shaping them into a pack. Tessa had smelled the pigment that pushed them, got a whiff of the man behind the beasts. And he, in turn, had spotted her. That was why one harrar had stopped and looked at her. It was why she was lying here, head aching, palm burned. Someone had seen her and wanted her dead.

  Suddenly aware of a lump in her throat, Tessa swallowed hard. It didn’t go.

  “Have you drunk all your tea, miss?” asked Emith. “It will take away any pain you might be feeling. Help clear your head.”

  Although she didn’t feel like it, Tessa smiled. She doubted if any medicine in the entire city of Bay’Zell could clear her head just then. “Emith, how long have I been asleep?”

  “A full day, miss.” Having settled his mother in her chair, Emith moved back toward Tessa. “You collapsed yesterday morning and slept through the day and night.”

  Tessa nodded. Her hand felt as if it were on fire. “You pulled me away from the table, didn’t you? And tore the brush from my hand?”

  Emith didn’t answer her question. Pulling up a stool to sit beside her, he said, “It’s a bad burn, miss. More your palm than your fingers. Mother washed it and put pot-marigold paste on the worst p
art, but I doubt if you’ll be scribing again for a good few weeks . . . and there might be a scar.”

  “Ssh, Emith,” said his mother. “Just keep it bound up for now, my dear. I’ll clean it again tonight. I don’t want to be causing you any more pain just yet. You need to rest. Eat. Emith, has she got that broth?”

  “I’ll give it to her as soon as she’s finished the tea, Mother.”

  “Be sure you do.” With that Mother Emith turned her attention to some vegetables in need of scraping. Tessa wondered if the old lady knew they wanted to talk.

  Nursing her hand against her chest, Tessa said to Emith, “What happened yesterday morning? Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

  Emith shook his head. He rubbed his temples and then glanced quickly at his mother before speaking. “I’m so sorry, miss. I should have pulled you away before I did. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve heard stories of scribes being burned as they worked, but I didn’t know whether they were true or not. When I saw you fall forward onto the table I knew something was wrong, so I did the first thing that came to my mind—I pried the brush from your hand and dragged you away. It was all my fault.” Emith looked down. “I don’t know what Mother and I would do if anything ever happened to you.”

  As Emith was speaking, Tessa glanced around the kitchen. Soft buttery light filtered through the oiled panels over the windows, and the fire crackled within the hearth, giving off a golden glow. She had come to love this place and the people in it. “It wasn’t your fault, Emith,” she said at last. “You can’t protect me against things you don’t know.”

  Tessa glanced at Emith, anxious to see how he reacted to her words. He was still looking down. His hands were in his lap. When he made no motion to reply, Tessa decided it was best to continue speaking. She needed to say these things to herself just as much as to Emith. “We both know Deveric drew me here for a reason, and now I think I know what that reason is. Only I don’t know what to do about it, or even how to start. You’ve taught me the important things, given me the bones, now I need to go and learn the rest.

  “Those five patterns Deveric created were a summons, and whether I like it or not, he’s given me something to do. There are terrible things out there, Emith. Terrible things. I’ve seen them. And I think I’m meant to fight them, and unless I know what I’m doing, I have a feeling I’ll end up getting hurt.” Tessa smiled, almost laughed. She felt as if she were saying things a madwoman would say.

  Still Emith said nothing. He did not look at her.

  Tessa shifted beneath the sheets. Her hand burned. Suddenly she didn’t feel like laughing at all. She felt tired, and her body seemed to be growing heavier by the minute. If only she could clear up the stuffiness in her head.

  “Deveric kept a part of me locked away,” she said, willing Emith to look up at her. “A part that has something to do with scribing, that helps me see through the vellum as if it were glass.”

  Emith’s head came up. His eyes were red. “If my master kept things locked away from you, miss, I’m sure it was to keep you safe.”

  Tessa nodded. She knew how important it was for Emith to think the best of Deveric. “Yes, judging from what happened yesterday, I think you might be right. I went in blind, drew a pattern without knowing what I was doing and why, and I ended up with this.” She raised her bandaged palm toward Emith. Pain made her bite her lip. A long moment passed before she could speak. “I think Deveric knew that what I did would be dangerous, and he didn’t want to risk me hurting myself before I was here, in this place, and could be properly taught.” Words came from her mouth only a fraction of a second before the ideas formed in her head. It was almost as if her brain were too tied up to work properly, so her tongue was doing the thinking instead.

  “I can’t teach you any more, can I, miss?” Emith said, not really asking a question at all.

  Tessa considered replying several ways, but in the end she said, “No.” Camron of Thorn had surely died yesterday, and if she had only known what she was doing, she might have saved him. Things were different now: what she said and did mattered. For the first time in her life she had real responsibilities. People’s lives depended on her. She might not like it, and she certainly wasn’t prepared for it, but that was the way it was. She was going to have to learn a lot more about a lot of things, and scribing was only the first of them.

  Emith glanced over at his mother. When he saw she was resting with her chin against her chest, he said to Tessa, “I don’t want you to leave us. Not ever. But you’re right; what you are doing is dangerous, and I don’t think Mother would ever forgive me if I let anything happen to you.” Emith’s hands were in knots. His voice was very low. Tessa thought he was finished speaking, but after a moment he carried on.

  “There is someone who can teach you things I can’t. A man in Maribane, on the Anointed Isle. He was a master scribe once. Now—” Emith shook his head. “Now I don’t know what he does. He won’t have forgotten, though. Nothing the holy fathers could have done would make him forget. He was too great a man for that.”

  “Brother Avaccus?”

  Emith’s eyes widened. “Yes, miss. Brother Avaccus.”

  “I got your mother talking one day,” Tessa said quickly, not wanting to leave Emith hanging. “She told me a few things about what you did before you began work with Deveric.”

  “Brother Avaccus didn’t do any of those things the holy fathers accused him of, miss. He was a scholar, he wanted to learn. He drew patterns to gain knowledge, not to draw forth the devil like they said.”

  Tessa nodded. The need to defend people he cared about was in Emith’s blood. He would do no less for her when she was gone. Feeling the lump return to her throat, she said, “Do you think Brother Avaccus will help me?”

  “Yes, miss. If he knows that I sent you, he will.”

  “If he’s still alive.”

  Emith shook his head. “Oh, he’s still alive. I’d feel it in the ink if he wasn’t.”

  Tessa looked into Emith’s dark blue eyes, and she knew what he said was true. Scribes’ assistants obviously had a little magic all their own. “How long will it take to get to the Anointed Isle?”

  “Four or five days, usually. The nearest port is Kilgrim. From there you travel overland to Bellhaven and then cross the causeway to the isle.”

  “Will you make the arrangements for me?” Tessa continued to look into Emith’s eyes. “I need to leave as soon as I can.”

  “You need to rest for a few days, miss. Get your strength back. Your hand wasn’t the only thing that was hurt.” Emith seemed agitated. His hands buckled in his lap, and his gaze traveled from Tessa, to the floor, to his mother, to the window. “The weather at this time of year can be very unpredictable—terrible winds. Hailstorms. You haven’t even got a cloak. And a young woman shouldn’t travel anywhere on her own without a comp—”

  Tessa cut him short. “Will you make the arrangements?”

  Even though Emith only let out a gentle sigh, his whole body seemed to deflate; his chest shrank inward and his shoulder slumped. His gaze fell to the floor. “Yes, miss. I’ll make the arrangements.”

  Although she had got what she wanted, Tessa felt no satisfaction. She didn’t want to go, leave this place and these people. She didn’t want to cause them pain. Reaching out with her left hand, she brushed Emith’s arm. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

  Emith patted her hand. He smiled, but it wasn’t convincing. “I’ll go down to the harbor first thing tomorrow morning. See about securing passage.” With that he stood, walked across the room, drew his mother’s shawl around her shoulders, picked up his lunular knife from the bucket near the sink, and let himself out into the yard. He didn’t slam the door, but Tessa felt as if he had.

  She shouldn’t have been so hard on him, should have said things differently, explained things better. Been kinder. More like . . . What? Her old self? Surely the old Tessa McCamfrey would have handled it even worse. Or would she? Tess
a didn’t know the answer. Head hurting, she drew her hand up to massage her aching temples. Forgetting about the burn, she used her right hand instead of her left. The movement caused pain to tear along her arm. She closed her eyes, held her breath until it was gone.

  Apples, chestnuts, and onions roasted on the fire. Although every man present had meat in his saddlebag, none had the stomach for it.

  It was getting dark. A breeze cut from the east, from the mountains and the passes that marked the Garizon-Rhaize border. There was no moon. A few bright stars twinkled close to the horizon, but a bank of clouds was sweeping across the sky and soon there would be nothing but darkness left.

  No one spoke. They huddled around the fire, though in truth the night was not that cold, and drank heavily from pewter flasks that passed from hand to hand as silently and fluidly as whispers from ear to ear. By unspoken agreement the fire had been built both broad and tall. Every man had helped collect wood for it. Every man who could walk, that was.

  Ravis looked from man to man. Mercenaries sat next to knights, archers sat next to noblemen, their faces all looking the same in the warm glow of firelight. Fear could be seen in the hollows beneath their eyes and the lines leading down to their mouths. The rational part of their brains told them the harras would not come after them, but it didn’t stop them from being afraid. Ravis had been on scores of campaigns in a dozen different countries, been set against the odds and natural wisdom more times than he cared to recount, yet he’d never seen anything to match what had happened yesterday at dawn. The men were right to be afraid. He was afraid himself. The harras were not creatures of God.

  Glancing through the flames and rippling air, Ravis picked out Camron’s form on the far side of the fire. He was tending to Broc of Lomis. The man had lost a lot of blood yesterday, and Ravis didn’t know if he would survive another night. Yet Camron seemed determined that he would. And if time spent and care given counted for anything, then there was a chance Broc might live to see dawn.