by Cindy Dees
“Freedom!” he bellowed.
He engaged the enemy. And counted the blows until Death found him.
He’d been plowing into Boki flesh for about a minute when he caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of his eye. And gold. He almost didn’t catch a wild axe swing on his sword in time as he half-turned to stare in shock. As it was, a shallow slice appeared high on his left arm. He felt no pain from it, though, and classified it as not serious enough to impair his fighting.
In the next momentary pause in the Boki’s attack he took another look. A wedge of Hyland colors was making its way to him. His men. They’d ignored his order and were coming to join him in full Hyland regalia.
“Noooo!” he shouted. He waved them back violently with his free arm, but they kept on coming. A giant Boki leaped into his path and he was forced to bend all of his attention to the warrior before him. No untrained youth was this orc. The Boki’s eyes were ferocious, rimmed in red fury. Leland was forced to give ground under the enormous power of the orc’s blows. His wrists ached and his fingers were fast going numb under the punishing flurry.
He felt the surge of support at his back more than saw it. And then Hyland swords joined the fray, flicking in and out beside him, picking off the orcs pushing his flanks.
“Go back!” he screamed at his men.
“We stand with you!” the sergeant shouted back.
“You die with me!” he retorted to no avail.
Dismay lodged in the pit of his stomach, but there was no time to do more than register it vaguely, for the Boki he fought was slowly but surely breaking down Leland’s defenses. A nick opened up on his lower calf and he vaguely felt blood running into his boot, making stepping on that foot a squishy affair. His mind shifted into an oddly detached state, observing the proceedings from afar.
So. This was the face of his death. He’d always assumed it would be an Imperial soldier who killed him in the end, although maybe he wasn’t so far wrong. His duel with the Boki had turned enough for Leland to glance off to his left to where Anton hid in the trees, far enough back from the fighting to be safe himself, watching. Grinning with glee to see his old enemy dying like this, no doubt.
Two of his men pressed close and teamed up with him to drive the Boki warrior back. For the moment. The orc would collect two more Boki to even the fight and would return soon.
“Get back!” Leland bellowed. “They will match as many warriors as we present to them with the same number of theirs! Let me do this alone!”
But his men either did not hear or chose not to. More of his men swarmed around him until a total of ten joined him. He tried to spot which two had already fallen or been beaten back, but the fighting was too chaotic for him to tell.
The Boki had correctly identified him and his men as the tip of the spear of this attack and were concentrating all their forces upon the knot of soldiers in green and gold. Leland couldn’t believe his men had dared to defy Anton and donned their colors for the fight. But it was comforting to be surrounded by his own colors in this, his final battle.
It was too late now to send his men back to safety. Their fate was sealed. They would meet at the Heart, then.
* * *
Raina shoved her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming in horror as she spied the leader of the charge onto the battlefield. No. No, no, no! Not Sir Leland. He’d been kind to her. Helped her when he did not have to. Had looked out for her best interests. He was decent and honorable and noble!
What was he doing out there, charging into the face of a huge Boki army? He would die.
Eben groaned on her left, “Oh no. Not my lord. What is he thinking?”
The Boki kept pouring out of the trees and the two forces clashed in a tremendous crash of noise and shouting and clanging metal. In a few seconds the groans and screams of the injured and dying joined the din.
The battle was gruesome. Raina saw men gutted and beheaded, saw limbs flying up into the air spraying perfect arcs of scarlet blood. She saw dying men trampled into the mud. And in the midst of it all she could not take her eyes off Sir Leland, fighting like a man possessed in front of the entire Imperial force.
Eben was muttering and groaning continuously, literally quivering in need to join his liege lord and defend Sir Leland. Cicero shifted place to lie beside Eben, placing a firm hand upon the jann’s shoulder.
“Steady, man. You could not help him anyway.”
“But he’s like a father to me. I already lost Marikeen and Kendrick. I cannot lose him, too. He is all the family I have left.”
Eben’s grief washed over Raina like ice water.
Cicero murmured sorrowfully, “Hyland’s already dead. The Boki have brought at least a hundred warriors to this grove, and Anton’s engaging about the same number of his own men. You know as well as I do that they’ll be cut down to the last man out there by the Boki.”
Raina did moan aloud then. She could not sit here and watch Sir Leland and his men slaughtered like sheep. A strong arm came around her shoulders and she leaned into Cicero, burying her face against his chest.
Sha’Li hissed angrily from her right, “What is Anton about? Why doesn’t he send all his men? He lets these ones die like fish in a barrel!”
Eben snarled, “He’s a coward. And a whoreson. He has always hated my lord. He sent Sir Leland out there alone and undermanned intentionally! I’ll kill him—”
“Easy, Eben,” Cicero murmured, getting a firmer grip on Eben’s upper arm. “We have our own quest to think of. None of us can afford to throw ourselves upon our swords. We must stay together and, regretfully, stay out of this battle.”
Eben swore violently. Raina echoed the sentiment in her head. It was not fair. It was cruel and unjust and vicious of Anton to take his revenge upon Leland in this manner.
“Ahh, stars!” Eben cried under his breath in agony. “The Boki elite take the field!”
Raina looked up from Cicero’s shoulder.
Leland and his men squared off against a force of nearly a dozen Boki warriors, all of whom looked nearly twice the size of the humans arrayed before them. Unquestionably, that was at least a sub-thane leading the force of elite Boki warriors. The two forces charged each other.
The fight was violent and bloody. And fast. The Boki warriors sliced through Leland’s men as if they were babes, cutting them down with brutal efficiency. Leland was the last left standing, and the largest Boki of them all charged him with a roar.
The fight slowed to a near stop in time as Raina took in the unfolding nightmare. The Boki feinted high with his right-hand axe. Leland raised his sword, bracing the blade with his free hand to take the blow. The axe slammed into the blade and sparks flew. But as the weapons connected, the Boki swung his left-hand axe. It started low, nearly at the ground, and swung up in a slow-motion arc. It bit into Leland’s groin and traveled up the length of his entire body, eviscerating him from stem to stern in a single horrendous blow.
“Nooooo!” Raina screamed.
Leland froze. The Boki’s axes fell to his sides. Leland staggered back a step. Looked down at his own dismembered body. Looked up at his foe. Nodded once. Smiled. And collapsed. Dead.
“Nononononononono…”
Raina wasn’t sure if she moaned the syllable over and over or if it was Eben. Or maybe both of them.
“A healer. Where is a healer?” Cicero bit out frantically. “Why doesn’t one come to him?”
Sha’Li answered bitterly, “We’ve been scouting the Imperials for three days. Have any of you spotted a single Heart tabard among them?”
The others’ only answers were grim, damning silence.
The lizardman girl snarled, “Anton brought no healers on this expedition! What better way to ensure that his mercenaries fight for their lives?”
Raina stiffened in fury. Sha’Li spoke the truth. And it was outrageous. Irresponsible. Criminally negligent. Make that plain criminal.
Then Raina cried out, “Rosana! You wear Heart
colors. You can go out there onto the field of battle and heal him! Hurry! His spirit only has a few minutes!”
The gypsy shook her head, the look in her eyes agonized. “I cannot. The Boki do not let anyone heal their kills. Not even the Heart. They would cut me down the moment I set foot upon the field. Even if I took a spirit form to get to Leland, the Boki surround his body. As soon as I took solid form to heal him, they would cut me down.”
Raina’s flash of hope dissipated in her mental wail of despair. He was lost then. Leland was well and truly gone. Grief ripped into her until she felt as eviscerated as his mangled corpse.
She looked on in dismay as the Boki thane commenced chanting something. He pulled something long and thin out of somewhere on his person. It looked like a small stake carved of the same red wood as his club. The thane finished his chant and slammed the stake down into Leland’s body, through his heart, and into the ground below. Raina turned her head away in horror as the thane lifted his head and roared in exultation.
“What about you?” Eben asked suddenly from beside her.
Raina lifted her gaze to him. His face was a multihued blur behind her unshed tears. “I wear no colors. I would stand even less chance than Rosana of making it to his body alive, let alone being allowed to heal him.”
“But what of the White Heart tabard in your pouch?”
Raina stared. Hope and dismay erupted in her gut in nearly equal parts. No. Not that.
Eben continued urgently, “The Boki know Balthazar and let him live among them. They will honor those colors. You could get to Hyland. You could save him.”
Stars, but at what cost? The rest of her life? Except it was Leland. Mentor. Friend. Father-protector to them all. Guardian of their quest. The quest—Hyland had sacrificed himself out there to buy them time to complete the quest. As soon as the thought struck her she knew it to be so. She owed Hyland. They all did.
She closed her eyes. Reached deep within herself for the strength to do this thing. It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. She looked up at the battlefield and could not see Leland’s body through the mud and blood and clashing warriors. But she felt his spirit slipping away even as she hesitated.
“Hurry,” Eben urged.
She looked up at Cicero. For just an instant she let all the despair in her spirit show in her eyes. A flash of sorrow reflected in his. Then he nodded his encouragement.
And she opened her pouch.
The pristine white fabric spilled out into her hands and she fumbled with the cloth, trying to unfold it and find the front. In her haste to get the thing on before she could chicken out she could not get it over her head. Many hands helped her, and in a moment the four-pointed blue star with its white heart and sun rays was centered boldly upon her chest. She smoothed her hand down the unfamiliar insignia. Her mind refused to accept what her eyes saw.
“What do I do?” she asked Rosana blankly.
Rosana cried, “Just run out in the middle of the fight and start healing. They all will leave your colors alone. Heal everyone who needs it, no matter their race nor which side they fight on. Since the Boki allow Balthazar to live with them, I think they know the rules and will let you heal their kills.”
She looked up at the raging battle doubtfully. “I’m supposed to walk out into the middle of that?”
“Aye. You are White Heart now. No one touch you.” Rosana muttered a fast incant and cast a glow spell on Raina. Against the pristine white of her tabard, it lit the night like a torch. “Go!” Rosana gave her a little push.
Sha’Li and Cicero pulled back the brambles to make an opening for Raina. She stumbled forward. Stood upright. And started forward, terrified.
The nearest combatants hitched in their swings as they caught sight of her. Both the rakasha and the Boki who were fighting disengaged from their combat and stepped back to let her pass between them. She walked forward, dimly noting the sounds of their resumed combat behind her. Heal everyone.
Leland. Must get to Leland.
She fixed in her mind’s eye the last place she’d seen him and broke into a run, aiming straight for him. The ground was rough, and she tripped several times over what she hoped were tree roots but suspected were not. Once a hand even reached out to steady her when she would have fallen in a patch of blood-soaked mud. She did not stop to thank the warrior, for Leland lay somewhere before her, dead, a stake through his heart.
Shockingly, the battle seemed to part in front of her like butter melting away from a hot knife. She judged she’d nearly reached the spot where he went down and pulled up to have a look around for him. A fierce knot of fighting centered upon the spot where Leland and his men had been mowed down. How was she ever to get through that? She flinched as a sword swung perilously close to her head.
“Gads, White Heart! Apologies. I saw ye not!” someone yelled from her left.
She gathered all her remaining nerve and stepped forward. “Make way for the White Heart!” she shouted.
The effect of her words was stunning. Boki and human alike fell back, lowering their weapons to let her through. It was surreal, passing through the battle almost as if she were a brightly glowing ghost, surrounded by gore and violence but touched by none of it.
She continued forward, stumbling over something soft and slippery. She dared not look down to see what it was. She was hanging on to her sanity by a thread as it was. She spotted a pile of green and yellow obscured by the churned filth of the battlefield. She leaped forward, searching frantically for the familiar visage and graying hair of her mentor. There. She fell to her knees beside him and used the hem of her pristine tabard to wipe the mud and blood off the slack face. It was Leland.
His face was pale. Peaceful.
She laid her hands upon his two shoulders, barely all of him that was intact, and quickly recited the incant to call forth life-restoring magics. The energy rushed painfully through her and into Sir Leland.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
She did it again, drawing more magic forth from within herself, blasting him with a burst of life magic a full-sized dragon could not ignore.
And still Leland lay there, lifeless. Dead. Gone.
She rocked back on her heels in disbelief. He couldn’t be gone. He’d genuinely cared for his people. For her. Given her wise advice. Protected her from those who would harm her or take advantage of her. Please resurrect, she begged his spirit. But something within her doubted that he wished to return to this world of pain and suffering, not when his beloved wife waited for him so patiently beyond the Veil.
The fog that had momentarily shrouded Raina’s mind began to shred. Screams and blood and bodies began to register upon her stunned senses. With awareness came tearing grief so sharp it caused her physical pain. A keening wail rose up in her and found voice, rising to mingle helplessly with the moans of the dying. Her innards felt as though they might fall right out of her and she clutched her middle in agony. No. Nononononononono …
But the bloody truth sprawled before her eyes, undeniable. Sir Leland was dead. She had reached him in plenty of time for the magic to work, and she had given him more than enough of it. Maybe that stake had made his spirit irretrievable. Now she had to trust him to the miracle of resurrection and Leland’s own will to live.
She noticed spatters of blood upon her clothes, obscene against the whiteness of her tabard. She scrubbed at them, succeeding only in smearing the blood into crimson streaks across her front.
Putting on the White Heart colors had been a waste. She’d given up her freedom, her future, her dreams—everything she’d fought so hard for—and it had all been for naught. She’d failed to save the one person in the world who’d ever shown her a parent’s selfless love, completely free of any ulterior motive or hidden agenda.
She’d failed. Utterly and completely.
As she knelt in the mud, her hands lying useless in her lap, her shoulders gradually slumped lower and lower as if a great load and
then a greater load still were being piled upon them. And at long last, she finally cried. For her lost childhood, her lost home, her lost family. For everything and everyone she’d run away from in her desperate quest and for the unbearable price of it all.
CHAPTER
27
Will jumped as Eben groaned beside him. “No. Oh no. Not my lord. Aaah, my lord—” The jann started to rise up from his hiding place, but Cicero and Sha’Li leaped on the grieving jann and forcibly held him down.
“Eben,” Cicero muttered urgently, “there’s naught you can do now.”
Will frowned over at Rosana. He thought he spied tears glistening on her cheeks. “What’s happening?” he whispered to her.
“Raina, she reached him in plenty of time. Which means the landsgrave’s spirit refused to come back when she tried to restore his life.”
“What does that mean?” Will pressed.
She gazed at him sorrowfully. “Hyland is dead. His spirit must resurrect if he is to return. If and until that happens, Landsgrave Hyland is gone.”
“Oh.” It felt like someone had just hit Will in the gut with a heavy rock. He looked out at the ghostly white form of Raina rocking back and forth on the ground over Hyland’s crumpled form. “We should go to her.”
Sha’Li snorted. “Look you at the same battle I do? A killing field it is. No mercy, no quarter. And not so well the pinkskins fare. Slaughtering everything crossing their path are those Boki.”
Will gazed out upon the battle, stricken. She was right, of course. But it felt wrong just sitting here, letting all this death unfold before him. Thing was, there wasn’t really anything their little party could do to stem the flow of a battle encompassing hundreds of combatants. And more important, they were so close to finding the Sleeping King, and that must take precedence—
Will’s brain hitched. He flashed back to the anguish and determination on his father’s face as Ty had led them away from the massacre of Hickory Hollow. This must have been exactly how Will’s father had felt, the thoughts he had been thinking, that awful night.
