A Lamentation of Swans

by Desiree Acuna

  Faine nodded his head vigorously, nearly wrenching Gwyneth from her perch since she was bound to his neck. She wiggled to distribute her weight more evenly as he trotted after Drake and Caelin. He sent her a reproving look and she reddened. “I slipped.”

  Shaking his head at her, he returned his attention to the riders in front of them, lifting his own head to scan the sides of the canyon as they rode deeper into it. Gwyneth couldn’t decide whether she most wanted to keep a watch for the soldiers, or hide her face against Faine’s neck. It was a childish urge, she knew, and pathetically useless as any sort of protection, but the anticipation of terror was making her feel faint and sick. Her heart fluttered so madly that it felt as if it had lost all rhythm. She couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs and the lack made darkness and dizziness swarm around her.

  As tensed as she was for what she expected to happen, it almost defied logic that the first bellow of challenge she heard made her hair stand on end and nearly stopped her heart in her chest. She whipped her head wildly around in search of the threat and was almost sorry she had. Soldiers were pouring over the rocks around them in a fleshy wave. Drake leapt up abruptly, balancing on his feet for a handful of moments on the racing stallion’s back and then, almost in the blink of an eye, transformed himself.

  His hair vanished. His skin rippled and changed from golden brown to an almost metal-like gold with the texture of reptilian hide. Horny growths sprouted down his spine and along the elongating tail that had sprouted from the end of his spine. Bony wings webbed with a thin, almost transparent skin, sprouted from his shoulder blades. He spread them wide and a great shadow fell over the canyon.

  The men in the forefront of those who’d been racing into the canyon on his side, skidded to a halt. The men behind them fell over them. Within moments, there was a struggling mass of bodies as they tried to extricate themselves. Drake sucked in a deep breath and blew out a wall of flame. Screams, smoke, and the awful stench of burning flesh filled the canyon.

  Gwyneth wrenched her gaze from the horrible sight and saw that, although Caelin had been fighting a running battle, swinging at the men coming at him and laying them open with his sword, the sheer weight of numbers had finally forced Darkness to a virtual standstill. The horse was lashing out with his forelegs and his hind legs, creating almost as much destruction as Caelin was with his sword. Drake’s horse, abandoned as Drake took flight, maddened by the battle around him, was fighting as ferociously as Darkness, stomping soldiers to a bloody mush.

  Faine abruptly charged into the fray, skewering one of the soldiers with his horn as he darted toward Caelin’s blindside. He jerked free as the man’s body began to fall, but the attempt to guard Caelin’s back brought them into the thick of the fight. They found themselves surrounded within moments and Faine twisted, bucked, and rammed the soldiers, trying to create a hole to slip through.

  “Take her up, Faine!” Caelin bellowed when he finally managed to find a moment to spare a glance at them. It was enough for him to see that Faine was surrounded and unable to use his wings.

  He began slinging his sword faster, using it almost more as a club than a blade as he struggled to beat a path to them. “Drake!” he bellowed abruptly. “À la Reine! To the queen!”

  A huge shadow fell over them abruptly, the near deafening sound of beating wings, a rush of air and dirt. The men surrounding them began to fall or fly away as Drake snatched at them with his claws, plucked them from the ground, and tossed them left and right.

  Faine reared abruptly onto his hind legs, punching at the men pulling at him and jerking at Gwyneth in an effort to drag her off his back. She thought her arms would be wrenched from the socket or her hands would separate from her wrists. She screamed as she felt one shoulder give. Faine uttered a cry at almost the same moment. Gwyneth felt the jolt go through him as one of the men drove his sword into Faine’s chest, felt the burning prick of the tip of the blade in one thigh as it went through him and into her.

  She screamed again, that time in terror that Faine had been mortally wounded, felt the world tilt as he fell over, carrying her with him and then wrenching and tugging. She began trying to flail her arms at the man who’d cut the bindings on her wrists, but one arm was useless.

  “It’s me!” Caelin growled, hefting her on to his shoulder and taking off at a run.

  Her vision strangely dark and distorted, Gwyneth struggled to lift her head enough to look for Faine and Drake. Drake had lit on the ground near Faine and was systematically punching men and shredding them with his claws.

  “Get up, you lazy bastard before they finish you off!” he bellowed, giving Faine a kick. Faine struggled to his feet, bracing his legs wide to stay on them once he’d managed it and looking around dazedly.

  Satisfied that he’d put the soldiers on the run, Drake glanced around, studied Faine’s wobbly progress for a moment and searched for Caelin and Gwyneth. Seeing that Caelin was struggling to mount Darkness with Gwyneth still slung over one shoulder, and returned his attention to the battleground. Except for a few stragglers who seemed more intent on retreat than fighting and the bodies and charred remains of bodies, he saw they had the canyon to themselves.

  He knees wobbled. He locked them with an effort and looked down at himself in confusion, searching for the source of his sudden weakness. Arrows studded his torso and legs, nigh a dozen all told, although he doubted those in his wings had anything to do with the weakness. Grasping the hafts, he plucked the arrows out of his flesh, studied the gashes from swords and looked around for the rest of the party.

  Caelin had finally managed to mount Darkness and was rapidly diminishing with distance. Faine, he saw, wasn’t faring well at all. He still had his legs under him, but he was staggering.

  He looked around for his stallion but a very little thought was enough to convince him that it wouldn’t be wise to expend the energy to transform himself and make use of the horse. Dragging in a shaky breath, struggling to ignore the pain from his wounds, he followed Faine, hoping against hope that the screams he remembered were only from fright and Gwyneth had suffered no lasting harm.

  He was in no shape to hurry after them to find out. Catching up to Faine, he settled an arm along his back, in part to help guide the unicorn, in part to help keep himself on his feet.

  He lifted his head now and then to search the sky and the sides of the canyon, watching for a new threat, worrying that the sun would set before Faine had recovered enough from his wound. The enchantment would make him change whether he was strong enough to manage it or not. He couldn’t decide, though, if the darkness that seemed to be descending very rapidly was the sun setting or unconscious.

  He shook his head, trying to shake it off.

  They hadn’t traveled much more than a mile by his reckoning when Faine’s legs, shaking with every step, abruptly gave out.

  Wavering slightly on his own feet, Drake stared down at him blankly for several moments, blinking the swarm of black insects from his eyes. Heaving a deep breath to collect himself, he bent over, hefted Faine to his feet and then lifted him to carry him across his shoulders. For a moment, he wavered, nearly blacking out, but he managed to blink away the impending darkness, find his bearings, and begin the trek to join Gwyneth and Caelin.

  Chapter Ten

  Fear rode Caelin harder than he rode Darkness. Gwyneth had gone perfectly limp, but he couldn’t tell if she had only fainted or if she was hurt that badly—mayhap dying. If he’d thought it safe to stop to check her, he would have, but a very little debate over the possibility convinced him getting her a safe distance from attack was imperative. She might die anyway, but he didn’t think he could fight off another attack.

  He stopped as soon as he’d convinced himself he’d put enough distance between them and King Gerald’s men to allow him to check her. Pulling her from his shoulder to his lap, he pressed his fingers to the pulse in her neck. Relieved to feel the steady beat, faint though it was, he looked her over for wound
s. Her skirts were bloodied, but he couldn’t tell if it was his blood or hers.

  “Find us some water, Darkness,” he ordered the horse, cradling Gwyneth against his chest. She stirred from time to time, but never quite attained complete consciousness. He thought her faint groans indication enough of some injury, but it wasn’t until Darkness finally found his way to a small stream that he dismounted and settled her carefully on the ground to check her.

  He found that her left shoulder had been dislocated almost immediately. “This is going to hurt like hell, dearling,” he said grimly, “but it must be done.”

  His hope that she might be far enough from consciousness to feel little pain vanished as he caught her arm in a firm grip and pulled on it until it popped back into join. She sucked in a sharp breath that bordered a scream as he did, and then went limp again. Mopping the sweat from his brow, he moved to her legs and tossed her skirts up. He found the wound immediately. His belly clenched as he studied the blood, but he had no idea if she’d lost too much or not. She was as pale as a ghost, but that could’ve been from the pain, he told himself.

  Tearing a piece from her underskirt, he bathed the wound and studied it. It was more of a puncture than a slice. He thought it had bled well enough to cleanse it of any foreign objects, though—he hoped. It was still bleeding a little, but thankfully not much.

  Tearing another strip from her clothes, he bound it snuggly, checked to make certain it wasn’t tight enough to cut off the circulation and finally straightened her skirts.

  He discovered she was looking at him when he glanced at her face. She swallowed a little convulsively, tears filling her eyes.

  “Shhh!” he said moving to settle beside her and pulling her carefully into his arms. “It is over. You are alright now, dearling.”

  She burrowed her face against his chest. “It is not alright! You are hurt. Let me see to your wounds.”

  “I am not hurt badly. Just be still.”

  To his relief, she subsided, sniffing back her tears. “You are not just saying that?”

  “I will let you kiss them all better when you are better,” he said teasingly.

  “You were bleeding.”

  “I am elfin, dearling. It takes a sight more than a few minor cuts to bring elfin folk down.”

  “But you hurt?”

  “Like a son-of-a-bitch,” he retorted almost cheerfully, “but you cannot take away the hurt. It will stop in a bit.”

  She pulled away a few minutes later and looked around. “Where are Faine and Drake?”

  Caelin glanced worriedly down the trail. “They will be along … soon now. Wait here while I get my pack and we can make you more comfortable.”

  She sat up and watched him keenly while he retrieved his bedroll from Darkness. It took an effort to refrain from moving stiffly, but he thought she was distressed enough. He didn’t want her bounding up and trying to fuss over him, and he knew she would if she realized how badly he was hurt.

  Spreading his bedroll, he helped her onto it and, upon consideration, pulled another strip from her underskirt and bound her left arm to her chest to restrict the movement. “I will have no underskirt left if I am hurt more,” she said, a teasing note to her voice.

  He managed a faint smile. “Then you should try very hard not to get hurt again.”

  She met his gaze for a long moment. He looked away first. “Lie still, there’s a good girl. I think I will bathe and see how much of this blood is mine and how much belonged to the men I fought.”

  He felt her gaze on him as he knelt by the stream and washed away the blood. Tearing his tunic into strips, he bound two of the wounds he found since they were still gaping and still bleeding sluggishly. The others he discovered were neither deep nor in need of anything but cleaning.

  He felt a little lightheaded when he stood up, but he managed to make it back to the pallet. “I think I will lie down and rest my eyes a moment,” he murmured a little drunkenly. “Wake me if you see any sign of the king’s men.”

  Gwyneth stared down at him in dismay but a very little thought produced the indisputable truth. There was nothing she could do for him beyond what he’d already done himself. It brought her a little relief to see that the bleeding seemed to have stopped. The bandages he’d wrapped around himself were stained, but the blood wasn’t seeping through. Brushing his hair from his brow, she leaned down and pressed her lips lightly to his forehead.

  His lips curled slightly. “That is better. A little lower would be better still.”

  Gwyneth felt her lips tremble on a smile. “I will do that when you are a little better and can enjoy it more.”

  He opened his eyes and stared at her with a mixture of surprise and heat but closed them again almost at once. “There is incentive to recover quickly,” he muttered.

  The urge to smother him in kisses as Drake had so often indulged her swept over her. As he was hardly in a condition to appreciate it and she knew it would only be for herself, she tamped it, instead looking around worriedly for any sign of Drake and Faine.

  Her heart contracted painfully in her chest when she finally remembered how she’d come to be wounded. It took an effort to keep from bursting into tears. She fought them back, reminding herself that Faine was a unicorn—magical. He could not die, she assured herself. It was a grievous wound, and that was why it was taking so long for him to catch up.

  Likely Drake, as well, she thought, suddenly feeling more hopeful. Drake had stayed to help him. That was what was keeping them!

  The quiet made her uneasy, though. After a bit, she got up and retrieved Caelin’s short sword. It was bloody all the way to the pommel, and sticky. She was tempted to plunge it into the water, but she recalled that she’d heard the men-at-arms discussing the proper care of their weapons and cleaning it with water was not acceptable—not for the blade, at any rate. Finding the swatch of cloth Caelin had used to clean her wound, she dampened it in the stream and cleaned the pommel and then wrung the cloth out and picked up sand with it to cleanse the blade.

  She was so intent on her task that it was a few moments before her mind interpreted the faint sounds behind her as something other than Darkness or Caelin. She whirled then with a mixture of hope and fear.

  Discovering it was Drake and that he was carrying Faine across his shoulders, she shoved to her feet and rushed toward them.

  Drake stopped when he saw her. His knees wobbled and then he dropped to his knees and fell forward.

  Sucking in a screaming breath, Gwyneth flew across the space that separated her from the two of them, dropping to examine Faine where he’d rolled to a halt. He was unconscious, she discovered, but breathing.

  “He will be fine, my pet,” Drake said in his rumbling dragon’s voice.

  Uttering a sob, Gwyneth scrambled to him, examining him frantically with her gaze and feeling as if the earth had dropped away beneath her. “Drake! Dearling! You are so hurt!” Sobbing almost uncontrollably, she struggled to lift his head into her lap and curled her good arm protectively around his head and shoulders. “Tell me what to do! I don’t know what to do for you!”

  “The salt of your tears is blinding me,” he muttered.

  Sniffing, Gwyneth uttered a watery chuckle as hopefulness and relief washed through her and brushed at her tears. “Tell me you are alright and I will not weep, dearest.”

  He released a shuddering breath. “I will be alright, my precious, when I have slept a bit.”

  She hugged him tightly, stroking his face when he passed out. She could not bring herself to get up. She sat with his head cradled in her lap until she finally realized that darkness was falling. She looked around a little helplessly, then. Caelin was unconscious on his bedroll and a goodly distance from Drake and Faine. There was nothing she could do about that. She couldn’t move them.

  A little reassured when Drake continued to breathe, however difficult and pained his breaths, she finally settled his head carefully on the hard ground and got up. She was stiff fr
om sitting so long, she discovered. It took an effort to make her way to the stream. She pulled her underskirt off and tore it into strips. Wetting one, she moved to Faine and studied his wound. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, she saw, but he was still unconscious. She squeezed the water into his mouth instead of using it on the wound, feeling a surge of hopefulness when he swallowed.

  She leaned down to kiss his face and got up again, returning to the stream for more water. When she’d given Drake water as she had Faine, she moved around him to examine his wounds. Dismay filled her when she saw how butchered he was. All of them were wounded, but Drake had taken far more damaged than all of them put together.

  Fear almost froze her. Her tears kept blinding her, but she brushed them away and carefully cleansed all of his wounds. She had no idea how to bind him when he was still in dragon form, though, so she simply focused on pouring water over the wounds that were still bleeding and pressing a cloth to them until, one by one, they closed.

  The light was failing rapidly when she finally looked up from her task. She debated whether it was a good idea to light a fire or not, but finally decided she would have to light at least a small one else she’d be too blind to offer them any sort of help.

  Getting up, she moved around the area collecting dried sticks until she had a small pile. When she’d arranged them, she searched Caelin’s pack for flint to light it and settled on her knees beside the pile. She almost passed out herself when she pulled her arm from the sling Caelin had made for her, but she couldn’t light a fire with one hand. It was almost torture, striking the flint to produce the spark she needed. She thought for a bit that she would pass out, but finally she succeeded in lighting it.

  Settling back on her heels, she fought a round with the nausea that followed on the heels of the pain. When she’d mastered it, she got up and carried water to the men again. Faine had transformed from unicorn into his man form when she reached him. Naked, he lay shivering on the ground. She searched his pack and unearthed his blanket, spreading it over him and then tucking the edges beneath him the best she could since she couldn’t move him. She paused long enough to stroke him soothingly until he’d begun to shiver a little less and then got up wearily to get water for Drake.