Faery Revenge

by Donna Joy Usher

  ‘Here.’ She handed it to me with a fork. ‘I’ll get you some water.’

  I ladled the food into my mouth, moaning as the flavours danced across my taste buds. ‘What about you?’ I said to Turos between mouthfuls.

  ‘I ate a couple of hours ago.’

  Isla handed me a mug of water and a chunk of warm bread and slid onto the floor next to me.

  ‘I need to keep going,’ I said as I wiped the bottom of the bowl with my bread.

  ‘Not at the moment you don’t.’ Isla rolled her head from side-to-side and stretched her arms behind her back. ‘You finished with the life-threatening wounded a couple of hours ago. The rest can wait. Or heal naturally.’

  ‘What about the dragons?’

  ‘Can you work on dragons?’ Turos scratched at his left cheek.

  ‘I guess so. I don’t have any knowledge of anatomy. I kind of just encourage the tissue to go back to where it came from. Don’t see why that wouldn’t work for a dragon.’

  ‘They’re pretty hardy,’ he said. ‘But there are a few that may not make it without help.’

  ‘Lance?’

  ‘He’s hurting. But he’s not bad. Took most of it on one flank. His wings are fine.’

  ‘I’ll get to him.’ I patted Turos on the leg. ‘Come on. I feel much better.’

  He stood up and extended a hand down to me. I wasn’t lying about feeling better, but I wasn’t about to knock back his help either. I let him pull me up and followed him as he walked through the room.

  Several of the women we passed stopped and bowed their heads, and a couple of men knelt.

  ‘I keep forgetting how important you are.’ I laughed as I punched him on the shoulder.

  He looked at me for a second before understanding bloomed in his eyes. ‘That wasn’t for me,’ he said. ‘That was for you.’

  ‘You’ve created a great number of awed fans,’ Isla said.

  I tried not to think about that as we approached the dragons. I’d never been comfortable with other people’s awe.

  The first dragon Turos took me to was a huge, red beast. He let out an angry snort as he raised his head to look at us and fire trickled out of his nostrils. I recognised the man standing next to him. It was the first man I had healed.

  ‘Rufos?’

  The beast opened his eyes again at the sound of his name, staring at me with cold, black eyes.

  ‘He won’t hurt you,’ the man said, ‘will you, boy.’ He shoved at the dragon as he said the last words and the injured animal turned to sniff at his handler.

  I held my hands out as I walked closer. His body was riddled with tiny puncture wounds.

  ‘Hey boy,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I helped your rider. I want to do the same for you.’

  Rufus stared at me while he considered whether or not to barbecue me for his evening snack. Then he snorted and lowered his head back to the ground. But he continued to watch me as I approached till I was close enough to lay a hand on the side of his neck.

  It was much the same as healing a human but on a much larger scale. I heard metal plinking onto stone as I swept through him, encouraging his tissue to knit back together. It sucked the same amount of energy out of me as if I had healed ten men, but when I opened my eyes, and Rufos reached out his head and nuzzled the side of my face, it was worth it.

  I had to stop for breaks every couple of dragons or so, depending on how badly wounded they had been. And at one point, Turos made me lie down on a make-shift bed of blankets to sleep. But by the time the sun had risen, all of the badly-wounded dragons were healed.

  ‘Come on,’ Isla said. ‘We need to get you to bed.’

  I was too tired to talk, let alone fight with her about it, so I let her take my hand as we followed Turos back to the hall.

  A man raced through the hall towards us. ‘King Bladimir requests your presence,’ he said to Turos. ‘And that of Isadora Gabrielle.’

  ‘Well, he’s going to have to wait,’ Turos said. ‘She needs sleep.’

  The man’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he nodded and raced back the way he had come.

  ‘He’s not going to be happy about that,’ Isla said.

  ‘I don’t really care.’

  I stared at Turos as his head split into two faces; both of them staring at me with concern.

  I felt Isla’s arm wrap around me. ‘Izzy?’ Her voice seemed to be coming from the other side of the room.

  ‘Come on.’ Turos swept me up into his arms and I let my head loll against his shoulder. He felt so nice and strong and warm. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t mind kissing him again sometime, and then I was fast asleep.

  ***

  I shook my head, disorientated from having been totally exhausted one minute to now finding myself in Trillania. It made me wish I’d had time to grab my dream catcher before we’d left.

  But I was here now so I may as well put it to good use.

  I flicked to the castle to see if anyone was around. A couple of guards stood in front of the castle, their hands resting idly on their sword pommels. They tensed as they saw me, and one of them was instantly holding a bow.

  ‘It’s Izzy,’ I called, waving a hand at them.

  They remained alert, the nocked arrow trained on me.

  I recognised the one with the bow. He had been at Stonehenge with us. ‘Don’t make me hurt you Boron,’ I yelled out.

  The bow disappeared back into thin air and he put a hand on the other guard’s shoulder and said something. I approached slowly, letting them see my hands at all times.

  ‘Izzy,’ Boron said as I got closer. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘As good as I can be,’ I said. ‘Any news?’

  He pulled a face. ‘The goblins are on the move again. They’ve begun attacking villages both here and through the veil.’

  ‘That’s not the worst of it,’ the other man said. ‘We think they’ve begun to marshal an army.’

  I felt the little energy I had left start to seep out of my body. It was replaced with a fear which slithered through my veins and lodged in my bones. All of a sudden, I wanted nothing more than to be an innocent 17 year old whose worst problem was finding a familiar. I’d had it much better then than I’d realised.

  ‘Is Rako here?’

  Boron shook his head. ‘He was here earlier with Prince Aethan, but now he’s off duty.’

  I couldn’t help but take note of the honorific. Before, Aethan had been one of them. Now he was the heir to the throne. I knew he would hate that. And since he was the heir to the throne…

  I smiled as realisation hit me like a lightning bolt. There was no way Rako would risk him coming here by himself. He would have to let him come, or risk Aethan eventually going mad. But I was betting the times he was allowed to come, he would be under heavy guard, and for the minimal amount of time necessary.

  Ha. Which meant when I had seen him the last time, he’d been here without permission. He was such a hypocrite.

  ‘Well,’ I said, still smiling. ‘When you see Rako, tell him I’m working on getting home.’

  They both had confused smiles on their faces but I didn’t bother elaborating. I closed my eyes and thought about Aethan, my smile growing even broader when I realised he was in the dream world.

  ‘Got to go,’ I said. ‘Things to do, people to scare the crap out of.’

  I pictured Aethan again and flicked to where he was, making sure I arrived a few hundred metres from his position. He didn’t hear me arrive and I didn’t make a sound as I watched.

  He knelt as he ran his fingers through the grass. I saw him straighten a bent blade of grass and then stand back up. He was tracking someone, and I didn’t need to be a genius to know who that someone might be.

  ‘She’s not here,’ I said.

  He swore and spun towards me as he pulled his sword from its scabbard.

  ‘Jumpy or what?’ I said as I walked towards him. ‘In my experience people are only that jumpy when they
’re doing something they shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Well,’ his sword disappeared from his hand and reappeared at his side, ‘you would know.’ He shook his head as he looked at me. ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Find me.’

  ‘I….’ I stopped talking as I stared at him. I always knew where someone was in Trillania if I concentrated on them. Galanta could find me purely from our blood bond, but I could have found her anyway. I’d just never stopped to think about it. ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered.

  ‘It makes sense.’

  ‘What does?’ I was sorting back through my earliest memories. We’d always agreed where to meet the next night, but I could have found him anyway.

  ‘That time you, Wilfred and I spied on Galanta, and Santanas knew you were there. It has to be a War Faery thing.’

  ‘You think?’ I couldn’t believe I’d never thought about it before.

  ‘Sure.’ He shrugged his shoulders like it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘You’re special.’

  I resisted the urge to throw something at him. Instead, I smiled. ‘So…I’m guessing you’re sound asleep with a fake dream catcher hanging above your head.’

  Guilt flicked over his face. ‘Did you come to taunt me or to help me?’

  ‘Help you, of course. But a girl can get a little taunt in at the same time can’t she?’

  It was his turn to smile. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘You know she’ll be able feel me too, right?’

  He nodded. ‘We have to at least try.’

  ‘Do you think the goblins will stop following Santanas if we kill her?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s not why I want her.’ He walked over till he was standing right in front of me. ‘She’s taken too many things from me for it to be allowed to go unpunished. My memory, my brother.’ He stepped even closer. ‘My future.’ He reached a hand toward me and brushed his fingers against mine for a fraction of a second.

  I took his hand and laid it against the side of my face, closing my eyes as I concentrated on the warmth of his skin against mine. ‘You’re right,’ I said, opening my eyes and staring into his deep-blue ones. ‘We will find her, and then we will kill her.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He paused for a second.

  I lowered his hand and let it go, gritting my teeth against the pain that came with the knowledge it might be the last time I would be able to touch him.

  ‘Why do you think she comes here when it is so easy for you to find her?’ he asked.

  ‘I have a couple of theories.’ I added a strapped dagger to each bicep, and moved my sword so that it was held across my back. I knew I could conjure them up at will as I needed, but I felt better with the feel of the steel against my body. ‘Firstly, I don’t think she was scared of me before.’

  ‘Do you think she is now?’

  ‘I hope not. It will make things easier.’

  He nodded thoughtfully as he looked around. ‘And what’s the second theory?’ he asked as his eyes returned to mine.

  ‘I don’t think she has a choice. I think she’s like us.’

  He sucked in a breath. ‘A shape-shifter and a dream-walker?’

  ‘It would make sense,’ I said. ‘They have to have them as well. Otherwise they wouldn’t know about Trillania.’

  ‘Santanas could have told them. He could have given them one of the armbands to copy.’

  ‘That makes sense as well,’ I said. ‘But I know she doesn’t wear one.’

  ‘It could be concealed under her clothes.’

  I smiled at him. ‘When she freed Santanas’s spirit from the stone, she was totally naked. As I said, I know she doesn’t wear one.’

  He cocked his head to the side. ‘Perhaps that’s where they met.’

  I didn’t even need to ask to know that Santanas was also a dream walker. ‘Bereft and half-crazed, wandering Trillania by himself at night.’ I nodded my head. ‘He would have been lonely. He also would have been vulnerable. And if he was already toying with black magic he would have welcomed her company.’ I was silent while I thought about it. ‘Can the goblins use magic other than black?’ I finally asked.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s why they can’t heal.’ He scuffed the dirt with the tip of a boot.

  I was procrastinating, and I knew it. I really wanted to kill Galanta. I wanted that so badly I tasted metal in my mouth whenever I thought about it. But there was one thing holding me back. ‘What if he’s with her?’ I blurted it out.

  ‘He can’t come here any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Wolfgang told me. It’s something to do with the spell used to resurrect him and the fact that his soul doesn’t belong in…in….’ His face screwed up into a mask of pain. I waited while he took deep breaths and ran his hands through his hair. When he had his emotions back under control he said, ‘If he comes here, his soul will be pulled back out and they’ll have to go through the whole spell again.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, relief flowing through me, ‘want to go kill some goblins?’

  ‘And you’re not going to give me the whole you’re-far-too-important-to-go-gallivanting-around-in-Trillania speech?’

  ‘I should,’ I said. ‘I should smack you on the bottom and send you home to Rako. I mean you are the heir to the throne.’

  ‘And you’re not going to because…?’

  ‘You’re a big boy,’ I said. ‘And besides, I miss hunting with you.’ I held my little finger out towards him. ‘Pinky promise.’

  He hooked my little finger with his and said, ‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’

  We stayed like that while I closed my eyes and sent my senses out to Galanta. ‘Ready?’ I asked when I had her pinpointed.

  ‘I was born ready.’

  I let out a snort and then propelled us to where she was.

  Dark smoke swirled from a fire; the light from the flames causing the shadows of the surrounding trees to dance and twirl.

  ‘Damn it,’ I said. ‘She’s already gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aethan said, staring over my shoulder. ‘But she left us a present.’

  I spun around in time to see a couple of goblin warriors break from the shadows and race towards us.

  ‘Yippee,’ I said drawing my sword.

  Aethan pulled a bow out of thin air and fired off two arrows. They sank into the goblins’ chests until only the fletching was visible. As one, the warriors sank to their knees and fell to the ground.

  ‘Hey.’ I turned towards him. ‘Not fair. You have to share them.’

  One side of his mouth pulled up and his little dimple appeared there. ‘That’s two to me.’

  ‘So that’s how it’s going to be.’ I turned back to scour the trees, hoping there was another couple hiding there I could take out before Aethan realised. I knew from experience that if I let him get too far ahead on the score card, he would be impossible to catch. But the area was clear of goblins. Bummer.

  I could tell by the fact that Aethan’s smile now touched both sides of his mouth that he knew what I had been thinking, but I stiffened my spine and threw my braid back over my shoulder. ‘Ready?’ I held my hand out to him.

  He took it as I concentrated on Galanta’s next position. I knew we wouldn’t catch her. Not tonight. She knew we were after her and because of our blood bond she could feel me coming. But it had been far too long since I’d kicked some goblin butt and I knew we would at least get to do that. And, if it made things inconvenient for her, well that was good too.

  ***

  The sun was streaming through the windows in my room when I woke. I could feel the weight of Scruffy’s body on one of my feet.

  I smiled as I stretched my arms above my head. We had only caught sight of Galanta once the whole time we had been there, but we had killed an awful lot of goblins trying.

  ‘I thought you were always grumpy first thing in the morning.’

  I started and turned towards the door. Turos leant against t
he door frame looking deliciously rumpled. ‘How long was I asleep?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours.’ He raked his hands through his white, spiky tufts, and then stretched his arms above his head; flexing his body from side-to-side as he did.

  I tried not to watch, but I could see his muscles flexing through his clothing. ‘Isla?’

  ‘She was fretting so I took her up to Arthur.’

  ‘Your father?’ The last thing I remembered was a summons to see him.

  Turos’s white teeth shone as he grinned. ‘He’s being very patient.’

  I swung my legs off the bed and sat up. Scruffy jumped off the bed and trotted over to Turos. He scratched at his foot with a paw.

  ‘You know what you need to do,’ Turos said.

  Scruffy immediately sat on his hind legs and lifted his front ones in the air. Turos reached down and handed him a scrap of meat.

  ‘You taught him to beg?’ I stopped in the process of unbraiding my hair.

  ‘That’s not the best thing. Watch.’ Turos looked back down at Scruffy, lowered his hand to the floor and said, ‘Lie down.’

  Scruffy dropped onto his side.

  ‘Roll over,’ Turos said as he flipped his hand over.

  Scruffy did a barrel roll and jumped back to his feet.

  ‘Play dead.’

  Scruffy collapsed in a heap.

  Turos smiled at me. ‘It hardly took me any time at all to train him. I can show you how if you want.’

  I laughed as I continued to work on my hair. When I had finished undoing it I said, ‘Scruffy, would you mind going into the bathroom and getting my brush?’

  He woofed, trotted from the room and came back a moment later with my brush in his mouth.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I need a new hair tie as well.’

  He dropped the brush on my bed and disappeared, coming back with a hair elastic.

  ‘Thanks boy.’ I ruffled the hair on his head and looked over at Turos.

  ‘You understand English?’ he said to Scruffy.

  Scruffy tilted his head to the side and hung out his tongue in a doggy smile.

  ‘Unbelievable. I fed him most of my dinner last night training him to do that.’