Fire skt-2

by Kristin Cashore

  She settled herself down and breathed a song about a leaning horse.

  Small nudged her awake, and she knew instantly that she was not alone. She heard a male voice, baritone, very quiet, very near.

  "I fight these looters and smugglers because they oppose the king's rule. But what right to rule do we have, really?"

  "You frighten me when you talk like this." Roen. Fire pushed herself against Small's door.

  "What has the king done in thirty years to deserve allegiance?"

  "Brigan – "

  "I understand the motivations of some of my enemies better than I understand my own."

  "Brigan, this is your fatigue speaking. Your brother is fair-minded, you know that, and with your influence he does good."

  "He has some of Father's tendencies."

  "Well, what will you do? Let the raiders and smugglers have their way? Leave the kingdom to Lord Mydogg and his thug of a sister? Or Lord Gentian? Preserving Nash's kingship is the best hope for the Dells. And if you break with him you'll start a civil war four ways. You, Nash, Mydogg, Gentian. I fear to think who would come out on top. Not you, with the allegiance of the King's Army split between yourself and your brother."

  This was a conversation Fire should not be hearing, not under any circumstances, not in any world. She understood this now; but there was no helping it, for to reveal her presence would be disastrous. She didn't move, barely breathed. And listened hard despite herself, because doubt in the heart of the king's commander was an astonishing thing.

  Mildly now, and with a tone of concession: "Mother, you go too far. I could never break with my brother, you know that. And you know I don't want the kingship."

  "This again, and it's no comfort to me. If Nash is killed, you'll have to be king."

  "The twins are older than I."

  "You're being deliberately obtuse tonight. Garan is ill, Clara is female, and both of them are illegitimate. The Dells will not get through this time without a king who is kingly."

  "I'm not kingly."

  "Twenty-two years old, commanding the King's Army as well as Brocker did? Your soldiers would fall on their own swords for you. You are kingly."

  "All right. But rocks, Mother, I hope I'll never be called king."

  "You once hoped you'd never be a soldier."

  "Don't remind me." His voice was tired. "My life is an apology for the life of my father."

  A long silence. Fire sat unbreathing. A life that was an apology for the life of his father: it was a notion she could understand, beyond words and thought. She understood it the way she understood music.

  Small stirred and poked his head out of his stall to examine the low-voiced visitors. "Just tell me you'll do your duty, Brigandell," Roen said, her use of Brigan's royal name deliberate.

  A shift in his voice. He was laughing under his breath. "I've become such an impressive warrior that you think I run around the mountains sticking swords into people because I enjoy it."

  "When you talk like this, you can't blame me for worrying."

  "I'll do my duty, Mother, as I have done every day."

  "You and Nash will make the Dells into something worth defending. You'll re-establish the order and the justice that Nax and Cansrel destroyed with their carelessness."

  Suddenly, and with no humour in his voice: "I don't like this monster."

  Roen's voice softened. "Nashdell is not Naxdell, and Fire is not her father."

  "No, she's worse; she's female. She's a thing I can't see Nash resisting."

  Firmly: "Brigan. Fire has no interest in Nash. She does not seduce men and ensnare them."

  "I hope you're right, Mother, because I don't care how highly you think of her. If she's like Cansrel I'll snap her neck."

  Fire pushed herself into the corner. She was accustomed to hatred. But still it was a thing that made her cold and tired every time. She was tired thinking of the defences she would have to build against this man.

  And then above her, an incongruous thing. Brigan reached a hand to the muzzle of her horse. "Poor fellow," he said, stroking Small's nose. "We woke you. Go back to sleep."

  "It's her horse," Roen said. "The horse of the monster you threaten."

  "Ah well. You're a beauty," Brigan said to Small, his voice light. "And your owner is not your fault."

  Small nuzzled the hand of his new friend. And when Roen and Brigan left, Fire was gripping her skirts in both fists, swallowing an infuriating fondness that she could not reconcile.

  At least if he decided to hurt her, she could trust him not to hurt her horse.

  Chapter Six

  This long night was not over, for apparently no one in the royal family slept. Fire had just crossed the courtyard again and slipped into the corridors of the sleeping quarters when she met the prowling king, handsome and fierce in the light of the torches. His eyes glazed over when he saw her. She thought she smelled wine on his breath. When he came at her suddenly, flattened her against the wall, and tried to kiss her, she no longer had any doubt.

  He had surprised her, but the wine addling his brains made her work easy. You don't want to kiss me.

  Nash stopped trying to kiss her but continued to press himself against her, groping her breasts and her back. Hurting her arm. "I'm in love with you," he said, breathing sour air into her face. "I want to marry you."

  You don't want to marry me. You don't even want to touch me. You want to release me.

  Nash stepped back from her and she pushed herself away, gulping fresh air, smoothing her clothing. She turned to make her escape.

  Then she swung back at him and did a thing she never did. Apologise to me, she thought to him fiercely. I've had enough of this. Apologise.

  Instantly the king kneeled at her feet, gracious, gentlemanly, black eyes swimming with penitence. "Forgive me, Lady, for my insult to your person. Go safely to your bed."

  She hurried away before anyone saw the absurd spectacle of the king on his knees before her. She was ashamed of herself. And newly anxious for the state of the Dells, now that she'd made the acquaintance of its king.

  * * * *

  She was almost to her room when Brigan loomed out of the shadows, and this time Fire was at her wit's end.

  She didn't even need to reach for his mind to know that it was closed to her control, a walled fortress with not a single crack. Against Brigan she had nothing but her small strength, and words.

  He pushed her against the wall as Nash had done. He took both her wrists in one hand and yanked her arms above her head, so roughly that water sprang to her eyes from the pain of her injured arm. He crushed her with his body so she could not move. His face was a snarling mask of hatred.

  "Show the slightest interest in befriending the king," he said, "and I will kill you."

  His superior display of strength was humiliating, and he was hurting her more even than he knew. She had no breath for speech. How like your brother you are, she thought hotly into his face. Only less romantic.

  His grip on her wrists tightened. "Lying monster-eater."

  She gasped at the pain. You're a bit of a disappointment, aren't you? People talk about you as if you're something special, but there's nothing special about a man who pushes a defenceless woman around and calls her names. It's plain ordinary.

  He bared his teeth. "I'm to believe that you're defenceless?"

  I am against you.

  "But not against this kingdom."

  I don't stand in opposition to this kingdom. At least, she added, no more so than you, Brigandell.

  He looked as if she'd slapped him. The snarl left his face and his eyes were weary suddenly, and confused. He dropped her wrists and stepped back a hair, enough that she could push herself away from him and from the wall, turn her back to him, and cradle her left arm with her right hand. She was shaking. The shoulder of her dress was sticky; he'd made her wound bleed. And he'd hurt her, and she was angry, more than ever before.

  She didn't know where her breath came from, bu
t she let her words loose as they came. "I can see that you studied the example of your father before deciding the man you wanted to become," she hissed at him. "The Dells are in fine hands, aren't they? You and your brother both – you can go to the raptors."

  "Your father was the ruin of my father and of the Dells," he spat back. "My only regret is that your father didn't die on my sword. I despise him for killing himself and denying me the pleasure. I envy the monster that ripped out his throat."

  At that she turned to face him. For the first time she looked at him, really looked at him. He breathed quickly, clenching and unclenching his fists. His eyes were clear and very light grey and flashed with something that went beyond anger, something desperate. He was little more than average in height and build. He had his mother's fine mouth, but besides that and those pale crystal eyes, he was not handsome. He stared at her, strung so tight he looked like he might snap, and suddenly to her he seemed young, and overburdened, and at the furthest edge of exhaustion.

  "I didn't know you were wounded," he added, eyeing the blood on her dress; and confusing her, because he actually sounded sorry about it. She didn't want his apologies. She wanted to hate him, because he was hateful.

  "You're inhuman. You do nothing but hurt people," she said, because it was the worst thing she could think of to say. "You're the monster, not I."

  She turned and left him.

  She went to Archer's room first, to clean the seeping blood and re-bandage her arm. Then she crept into her own room, where Archer still slept. She undressed and pulled on his shirt, which she found lying on the floor. He would like that she chose to wear it, and it would never occur to him that she only wanted to hide her wrists, blue with bruises that he must not see. She didn't have the energy for Archer's questions and his vengeful anger.

  She rifled through her bags and found the herbs that prevented pregnancy. She swallowed them dry, tucked herself in beside Archer, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  In the morning, coming awake was like drowning. She heard Archer making a great clatter in the room. She fought her way to consciousness and pushed herself up, and stopped herself from groaning at the old pain in her arm and the new pain in her wrists.

  "You're beautiful in the morning," Archer said, stopping before her, kissing her nose. "You're impossibly sweet in my shirt."

  That might be, but she felt like death. She would gladly make the trade; how blissful it would be to feel impossibly sweet, and look like death.

  He was dressed, aside from his shirt, and clearly on his way out the door.

  "What's the hurry?"

  "A beacon fire is lit," he said.

  Towns in the mountains lit beacon fires when they were under attack, to call on the aid of their neighbours. "Which town?"

  "Grey Haven, to the north. Nash and Brigan ride out immediately, but they're sure to lose men to the raptor monsters before they get to the tunnels. I'll shoot from the wall, along with anyone else who can."

  Like a dive into cold water, she was awake. "The Fourth has gone, then? How many soldiers do Nash and Brigan have?"

  "My eight, and Roen has another forty to offer from the fortress. "

  "Only forty!"

  "She sent a good portion of her guard away with the Fourth," Archer said. "Soldiers from the Third are to replace them, but of course they're not here yet."

  "But fifty men total to two hundred raptors? Are they mad?"

  "The only other option is to ignore the call for help."

  "You don't ride with them?"

  "The commander believes my bow can do more damage from the wall."

  The commander. She froze. "Was he here?"

  Archer glanced at her sidelong. "Of course not. When his men couldn't find me, Roen came herself."

  It didn't matter; already she'd forgotten it. Her mind spun with the other particular, the insanity of fifty men trying to pass through a swarm of two hundred raptor monsters. She climbed out of bed and searched for her clothes, went into her bathing room so that Archer wouldn't see her wrists as she changed. When she came out he was gone.

  She covered her hair and attached her arm guard. She grabbed her bow and quiver and ran after him.

  In desperate moments Archer was not above threats. In the stables, with men shouting around them and horses fidgeting, he told her that he would tie her to Small's door if he had to, to keep her off the wall.

  It was bluster, and she ignored him and thought this through, step by step. She was a decent shot with a bow. Her arm was well enough to shoot as long as she could bear the pain. In the time it took the soldiers to thunder away into the tunnels she could kill two, maybe three of the monsters, and that was two or three fewer to tear into the men.

  It only took one raptor to kill a man.

  Some of these fifty men were going to die before they even reached whatever battle they faced at Grey Haven.

  This was where panic set in and her mental reckoning fell apart. She wished they wouldn't go. She wished they wouldn't put themselves at this risk to save one mountain town. She hadn't understood before what people meant when they'd said the prince and the king were brave. Why did they have to be so brave?

  She whirled around looking for the brothers. Nash was on his horse, fired up, impatient to get started, transformed from the drunken no-head of last night into a figure that at least gave the impression of kingliness. Brigan was on his feet, moving among the soldiers, encouraging them, exchanging a word with his mother. Calm, reassuring, even laughing at a joke from one of Archer's guards.

  And then across the sea of clamouring armour and saddle leather he saw her, and the gladness dropped from him. His eyes went cold, his mouth hard, and he looked the way she remembered him.

  The sight of her killed his joy.

  Well. He was not the only person with the right to risk his life, and he was not the only person who was brave.

  It all seemed to make sense in her mind as she turned to Archer, to assure him she didn't want to shoot raptors from the wall after all; and then she swung away to Small's stall to do something that had no logic whatsoever, except, perhaps hidden very deep.

  She knew the entire enterprise would only take a few minutes. The raptors would dive as soon as they'd comprehended their own superior number. The greatest danger was to the men at the back of the line who would have to slow their pace as the horses entered the bottleneck of the nearest tunnel's entrance. The soldiers who made it into the tunnel would be safe. Raptors didn't like dark, cramped spaces, and they did not follow men into caves.

  She understood from the talk she heard in the stables that Brigan had ordered the king to the front of the column and the best spear-men and swordsmen to the back, because in the moment of greatest crisis the raptors would be too close for bows. Brigan himself would bring up the rear.

  The horses were filing out and gathering near the gates when she prepared Small, hooking her bow and a spear to the leather of his saddle. As she led him into the courtyard no one paid her much attention, partly because she monitored the minds around her and nudged them aside when they touched her. She led Small to the back of the courtyard, as far as she could get from the gates. She tried to express to Small how important this was, and how sorry she was, and how much she loved him. He dribbled against her neck.

  Then Brigan gave the order. Servants swung the gates in and pulled the portcullis up, and the men burst into daylight. Fire pulled herself into her saddle and spurred Small forward behind them. The gates were closing again when she and Small galloped through, and rode alone, away from the soldiers, toward the empty rockiness east of Roen's holding.

  The soldiers' focus was northward and up; they didn't see her. Some of the raptors did, and, curious, broke off from the surge dropping down onto the soldiers, few enough that she shot them from her saddle, clenching her teeth through the pain. The archers on the wall most certainly saw her. She knew it from the shock and panic Archer was sending at her. I'll be most likely to survive this if
you stay on that wall and keep shooting, she thought to him fiercely, hoping it would be enough to keep him from coming out after her.

  And now she was a good distance from the gates and the first soldiers had reached the tunnel, and she saw that a skirmish of monsters and men had begun at the back of the line. This was the time. She drew her brave horse up and turned him around. She yanked her scarf from her head. Her hair billowed down over her shoulders like a river of flame.

  For an instant nothing happened, and she began to panic because it wasn't working. She dropped her mind's guard against their recognition. Still nothing. She reached out to grab at their attention.

  Then one raptor high in the sky felt her, and then sighted her, and screamed a horrible sound, like metal screeching against metal. Fire knew what that sound meant, and so did the other raptors. Like a cloud of gnats they lifted from the soldiers. They shot into the sky, twirling desperately, searching for monster prey, finding it. The soldiers were forgotten. Every last raptor monster dove for her.

  Now she had two jobs: to get herself and her horse back to the gates, if she could; and to stop the soldiers from doing something heroic and foolish when they saw what she'd done. She spurred Small forward. She slammed the thought at Brigan as hard as she could, not manipulation, which she knew would be futile – only a message. If you don't continue onward to Grey Haven this instant, I will have done this for nothing.

  She knew he hesitated. She couldn't see him or sense his thoughts, but she could feel that his mind was still there, on his horse, not moving. She supposed she could manipulate his horse, if she had to.

  Let me do this, she begged him. My life is mine to risk, as yours is yours.

  His consciousness disappeared into the tunnel.

  And now it was the speed of Fire and Small versus the swarm descending upon her from the north and from above. Under her, Small was desperate and wonderful. He had never flown so fast.

  She bent herself low in her saddle. When the first raptor cut into her shoulder with its claws she threw her bow backwards at them; it was useless now, a stick of wood in her way. The quiver on her back might serve as a kind of armour. She took her spear and stuck it behind her, one more thing for the birds to have to work around. She clenched her knife in her hand and stabbed back whenever she felt a claw or a beak jabbing into her shoulder or her scalp. She didn't feel pain anymore. Only noise, that might be her own head screaming, and brightness, that was her hair and her blood, and wind that was Small's headlong speed. And arrows suddenly, flying very close past her head.