Aislin of Arianrhod (Land of Alainnshire)

by S. L. Jesberger

  Aislin was so focused on the arc of the cudgel as he swung it, that she only noticed at the last moment that he’d again maneuvered her back against the wall.

  “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re just too stupid to understand,” she gasped, as she swung hard at him, trying to get back out into the open. “I would kill myself before I would ever marry you!”

  With a thunderous bellow of rage, he swung the cudgel upward with all of his might and delivered a devastating blow to one end of her pike. He knocked it out of her hands, and she stood rooted to the spot, watching it spin over the high wall around the cemetery.

  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as she turned back around to face him. He still held the cudgel over his head, and she stared numbly, unable to move, as he brought it down with tremendous force across her forearm. She heard a sickening crack as the bones in her left arm broke.

  The momentum of the cudgel as it hit drove her down and backward. A blistering wave of agony surged up her arm; hot, licking flames scorched her. She tried to twist away from the pain, but it moved with her as she fell. A cry reverberated through her skull—it was not a human sound. It was the scream of a wounded animal that knew it was dying.

  Slipping in and out of consciousness, she slumped against the wall, shivering, drifting alone in an ocean of suffering. She finally opened her eyes and looked up to find Jariath standing over her, tall and imposing, the cudgel in one hand and a rope in the other.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you like this. Your arm is obviously broken,” he said in a tone that sounded strangely like concern. “I won’t be able to tie your hands now—I’ll just slip the rope around your neck. We can tend to your arm in Morrigan. Say you’ll go with me, and I won’t have to hurt you further.”

  Without moving her head, she dropped her eyes. Nausea doubled her over.

  Her left forearm was laying at a right angle to the rest of her arm. White bone, shattered and frayed, protruded through a long, gaping tear in the skin, and blood seeped from the ragged edges of the wound. Pink muscle and smooth, pearly white tendons cramped and twitched, reacting impulsively to destroyed nerve endings. Aislin clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that was clawing its way into her throat. She was afraid if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “This fight is over. I’ve won. Tell me you’ll come to Morrigan with me. I want to hear you admit defeat.” Jariath’s voice came from a million miles away.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. The sounds of the battle were dying off. She somehow knew Wyndham had won the day. Everything she’d done was for Bryce, so he would have a productive kingdom when he returned. She could feel that Bryce was here, fighting with his men outside. From this day forward, Arianrhod would have a much better army to defend it.

  But this princess wasn’t going to get a happily ever after. No one would be able to save her now, even if someone managed to rescue her from Jariath. Her arm was shattered. How long would it take her to die from infection and gangrene? How much would she suffer before she died?

  Pain slammed into her in excruciating waves, searing and relentless. She twisted against the stone wall in agony. She opened her eyes as Jariath crouched down in front of her, watching her closely, his blue eyes unfocused and glowing with a strange intensity. It took her a moment to understand. He was enjoying her misery.

  Aislin dropped her head, but Jariath roughly grabbed her jaw and forced her eyes back to his. She fought to pull her chin out of his hand, but every movement she made sent lightening bolts of pain shooting down her arm. She finally gave up, putting every bit of contempt she could find into her eyes.

  “I wonder if you know how much I hate you,” Aislin hissed at him.

  “Say it! You win, Jariath. The sooner you say it, the sooner we can get that arm fixed.”

  “Just kill me, you bastard! No one in Morrigan is going to be able to fix my arm. It’s going to end up killing me anyway. Just do it now,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “Do it, you coward!”

  Jariath threw his head back and laughed. “I won’t. I’ve waited too long for this moment.”

  He released her chin, stood up, and made a loop in the rope he held in his hands. He was truly going to drag her out of the manor house with a rope around her neck. She knew Wyndham’s huge army, all weapons drawn and ready, would do nothing to endanger her life. Jariath had won at least that part of the battle. They would watch helplessly as he carried her off to Morrigan.

  He’d just finished tying the knot in the rope when Aislin heard a soft hiss pass over her. Looking up through a fog of misery, she was astonished to see an arrow sticking out of Jariath’s chest.

  He dropped his gaze, along with the rope. His arms spread wide, he stared dumbfounded as a dark stain spread out from around the shaft of the arrow, brilliant red against his white shirt. Confusion twisted his face as he looked up at her. He continued to stare, silently pleading, as though she had the answer to the arrow that had pierced him.

  And then another arrow...and another... and another...hit him in the chest. He staggered back.

  Aislin tried to make sense of what she was seeing. She finally understood that the shower of arrows was coming from someone standing on the wall above her.

  Jariath was still on his feet, despite the half dozen arrows sticking out of him. He was punished with more arrows every time he made a move toward her. Finally, he staggered and fell on his back.

  Aislin heard a pair of feet hit the grass beside her. “Thank the gods, I finally found you!”

  Shivering violently, she jerked her head and looked up into the most beautiful pair of green eyes she’d ever seen.

  Tristan knelt down beside her, his hands warm on her neck and shoulder. “Aislin...”

  “You’re... alive!” she whispered.

  “Well, isn’t this touching,” Jariath taunted in a voice much stronger than she expected. “So this is your lover, the elf. This is the freak you have chosen over me.”

  Tristan shot to his feet and gave Jariath a dark look. Then he stuck the pike in the ground beside Aislin and backed away.

  Aislin looked up at Tristan. He nodded slightly at her, and then at her pike. She knew what he wanted her to do.

  Jariath continued his verbal assault from several feet away, coughing up blood as he did so. Tristan stood back and let Aislin stand on her own. Using her good arm, she pulled herself upright with the pike and yanked it out of the ground when she got to her feet. She limped slowly over to where Jariath lay.

  Jariath looked up at her, choking on his own blood. “You weren’t good enough for me anyway, whore. I deserve better.”

  “You deserve this,” Aislin said furiously.

  Aiming for the hollow of his throat, she raised the pike and slammed it down with all the force she could summon. She channeled over a decade of rage and frustration down her arm and into the pike.

  The metal point tore into his flesh, crunching and ripping muscles, trachea, and tendons as it traveled. It finally emerged out the back of his neck and stuck in the ground.

  Jariath’s eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as his arms and legs jerked wildly. A gurgling sound escaped from his throat as he pulled at the pike that impaled him to the earth.

  Feeling no pity or remorse, Aislin crouched down beside him, deliberately sliding her hand slowly down the pike as she went to the ground.

  “I win,” she said savagely, holding his startled blue eyes with her own. His hand clutched at hers on the pike, his fingers curved into a desperate, prying claw. Though his touch made her skin crawl, she would not let him see her flinch. She let him put his hand on hers; she had nothing to fear from him now. His mouth gaped open several times, the light went out of his eyes, and with one final hissing, wet gasp that seemed to come f
rom deep within him, his arm fell limp to the ground. Jariath was dead.

  Behind her, Tristan gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Remind me never to make you angry!”

  She wanted to laugh, but everything was starting to spin. She stood up and staggered back, falling, and Tristan caught her in his arms.

  He eased her down, holding her partially on his lap. “He broke my arm,” Aislin whispered to him.

  “I see that.” His face had drained of color.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I must admit, it was a bit of a challenge. We all heard Jariath bellowing, and I knew you were the only one who could make him that angry.” He grinned at her. “And when I saw your pike flying over the wall, I knew without a doubt where you were.”

  She smiled weakly.

  He held her close. “I’m just so glad to have found you. I had no visions at all this time, nothing to go on. I was just lucky.”

  “I’d rather be lucky than good,” she whispered. “My arm...”

  “I won’t lie to you. It’s bad.”

  Aislin nodded her head. “I know. You have to find Roderic...”

  “I think you know this is well beyond Roderic’s capabilities.”

  “Then I’m going to die.” She closed her eyes wearily and laid her head against Tristan’s chest. She felt him stiffen.

  “I have one other thing I can try,” he said.

  Aislin nodded weakly as she went limp in his arms.

  Sighing, he laid her gently on the ground. He kissed her softly, murmured something in her ear, and then sat back.

  Putting both hands on her broken arm, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He began to speak in Sylvan, his voice low. A myriad of glowing colors danced around his hands as he moved them over her arm. His voice grew louder and stronger as he spoke the strange Sylvan tongue, until his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed unconscious beside Aislin.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  RODERIC CAUTIOUSLY PEERED AROUND THE thick frame of the open throne room door.

  He could smell death somewhere in the courtyard. As his eyes swept over the front half of the room, they fell on the dark brown trace on the floor. An icy hand gripped his heart, and he stood frozen to the spot. It was unmistakably dried blood.

  Please. Not Aislin.

  He retreated out of the doorframe and stood with his back to the wall, eyes closed, his heart pounding. What would he do if it was her in the throne room, her blood running from her in a river, her amber eyes open and unseeing?

  He thought of Aislin laughing, touching his face in the wonderful, intimate way she had with everyone. All of the formidable forces of nature wrapped up neatly in one beautiful package. She couldn’t be dead. The universe would feel completely different right now if that were true.

  Bryce and Stanis came up beside him, and he closed his eyes.

  “What is it?” asked Stanis.

  “I think there’s a body in the throne room,” Roderic whispered, looking up at them. The color drained from Stanis’s face, and he knew they were thinking the same thing.

  “Someone has to go in,” Bryce said. “I’ll do it.”

  Bryce hesitated a moment, then walked through the doorway as Stanis and Roderic locked eyes.

  “Well? Who is it, boy?” demanded Stanis.

  “It looks like Tristan,” Bryce called back.

  Both men swore under their breaths, as they ran over each other getting through the door.

  It did indeed look like Tristan. The clothing was the same, the hood pulled over the head, the dead green eyes luminescent across the room. Roderic knelt beside him and rolled him over.

  “This isn’t Tristan,” Roderic said. “Definitely another elf, but not Tristan.”

  “How would another elf end up here, in the house? And who cut his throat?” Bryce asked.

  “Don’t know. Tristan was the only one I really talked with when we were captive in his village. I knew there were others, but I didn’t get to meet them. Not in a pleasant way, at least. I’m sure there’s an interesting story here.”

  Roderic was greatly relieved to see that it wasn’t Tristan dead on the throne room floor. After watching him fight, he rather hoped he’d get the chance to know him better.

  Tristan had commandeered his own horse and fought with them outside the wall during the battle, swinging a sword tirelessly as he frantically searched for Aislin.

  Roderic had pulled Delphas to a halt when he heard a monstrous shriek from inside the walls surrounding the manor house. His eyes had met Tristan’s across the battlefield. They’d both looked up as a white pike arced high over the wall, doing a slow, lazy spin against the sky. The blood had drained from Tristan’s face as he watched it fly.

  Roderic had not thought it possible for anyone to move as fast as Tristan did when he saw the pike in the air. Tristan was off the horse and on the top of the wall with the pike in his hand before Roderic even had a chance to blink.

  He’d watched, fascinated, as the elf began to fire arrows down into the grounds below in one continuous blur of motion, so fast Roderic couldn’t follow it with his eyes. And then Tristan had jumped off the wall, pike in hand. It was the last they’d seen of him.

  Rod, Bryce and Stanis cautiously made their way out through the courtyard and into the cemetery. They stopped abruptly when they heard the soft sounds of a woman crying near the back of the cemetery.

  “Aislin,” Roderic breathed, his shoulders sagging with relief.

  He found her on her knees, half-lying on Tristan’s body, sobbing as if her life were ending. Roderic got to his knees beside her. “Are you hurt?”

  Her eyes were wild, pleading, wet with tears. “Roderic, do something! Please...help him!”

  Roderic put two fingers to the side of Tristan’s neck and felt a weak pulse. “He’s alive, but just barely. I’ll get him upstairs and take a look at him.”

  Roderic wasn’t sure he’d be able to lift him, but he was running on pure adrenaline. He hoisted Tristan over his shoulder and carried him off to the manor house.

  Aislin pushed herself off the ground and turned, almost running into the man standing behind her. She lifted her eyes, her breath hitched, and she nearly went back to her knees.

  She hungrily studied the face of the sandy-haired boy standing so close to her. He was young, tall, covered with dark leather armor bearing the crest of Wyndham. She stared into the depths of his eyes: warm brown and rich gold, so like another pair of eyes she’d known and loved.

  “Fi..Fionn?” Aislin furrowed her brow, confused, as she reached to touch the cheek of the ghost in front of her.

  “You must be my Aunt Aislin,” Bryce said, as he gathered her into his arms.

  A fresh flood of tears soaked his leather breastplate as her nerves, stretched taut, finally shattered into a million tiny pieces.

  Stanis pulled a little on the pike that protruded from Jariath’s neck. “Aislin, who did this?”

  “I did!” she sobbed, her face still buried against her nephew.

  “Nicely done!” chuckled Stanis. “I take it this is...was...Jariath?”

  She nodded. She pushed herself slightly off Bryce’s chest and sobbed, “He can’t die...not now... he saved my life!”

  “Who?” Bryce asked, confused.

  “Tristan!”

  “He saved your mother and Gwen too,” said Stanis. “Brought them to us as we marched into Arianrhod. Seems like a fine fellow. Didn’t know elves still existed in these parts.”

  She was thankful to hear Gwen and her mother were safe. All they had to do now was retrieve Maeve and Devin from Oakenbourne, and everyone was healthy and accounted for. Except Tristan. The thought sent Aislin into fits of weeping again. Bryce looked helplessly over the top of he
r head at Stanis.

  “Come. We’ll find out where Rod has taken him, and you can stay with him,” said Stanis.

  Roderic laid Tristan down on a bed in a guest room upstairs in the manor house and examined him. He didn’t have a mark on him, yet he struggled for breath and had a dangerously slow heart beat. He had his doubts about Tristan’s survival, and he sensed that he’d have to approach Aislin carefully with that news. It looked as though she and the elf had forged some kind of connection. He had to find out for sure.

  He heard Aislin come into the room, still sniffling. He turned and put his hand on her shoulders.

  “I want you to understand that I didn’t leave you in his village willingly,” Roderic said, looking into her eyes. “When he offered to let me go, I demanded that he release you as well. He refused, and I knew you’d want me to get help any way I could. That’s the only reason I left without you. Nothing I said could convince him to release you with me. Before we go any further with this, I want to know if he hurt you in any way. If he did, he’s going straight to the dungeon.”

  Aislin looked surprised, then started to laugh. “He didn’t hurt me, Rod. Not at all. I was furious when I found out that he’d sent you on without me. But I wasn’t really a hostage there. I think he was just curious about me. He wanted to keep me, and that was the only way he could think to do it.”

  Roderic searched her eyes and could see she was telling him the truth. He gave her a little half-smile. The idea that Tristan would want to keep her didn’t seem so far-fetched to him.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Roderic. “He just seems used up, spent and weak. He isn’t injured in any way. Do you remember what happened?”

  Aislin looked down at the pale elf lying on the bed, and back up at him.

  “Jariath broke my left forearm with his club. More than broke it, he destroyed it. The last I remember before I passed out was Tristan saying he had one other thing he could try.” She looked up at Roderic with tears in her eyes. “Somehow he healed my arm!”