by H. A. Harvey
Kelly picked up the silver fork beside the sliced steak and skewered a smaller piece. She brought it up to her nose and inhaled. Karen was right, it did smell . . . simply divine. Kelly smiled at Karen, mischievously.
“You know what was really divine? Your mom’s cherry pies.” Kelly giggled, “I remember you and I would eat as many cherries as we picked when she sent us out on the commons to gather them for her. Do you think we’ll ever get back and taste those again?”
“Of course we will, sweetie.” Karen stroked Kelly’s cheek reassuringly. “But we have to keep our strength up if we want that to happen.”
Kelly smiled and reached her empty hand up to caress Karen’s and hold it against her cheek. With a sudden shout, Kelly seized the woman’s wrist and stabbed at her with all her might. Not-Karen brought up her other arm just in time to have the fork driven deep into her forearm. The woman screeched and fell to the side. Kelly scooped up the tray and smashed it across Not-Karen’s face with all of her strength.
Kelly sprang to her feet and leapt over the dazed woman toward the door. At the height of her arc, something slammed into her. It wasn’t hard, but sent her sprawling back in the center of the room on her back. Not-Karen staggered back to lean in the doorway. She glared at Kelly with murderous rage in her eyes, yanking the fork out of her arm and tossing it out into the hallway.
“Fine, you little bitch.” Not-Karen spat venomously, “We’ll do this the hard way. You can start by licking your dinner off the floor.”
“You stupid witch!” Kelly screamed after the imposter as the door slammed shut, “You made so many mistakes I couldn’t list ‘em all! And I couldn’t have beat the tar out of the real Karen!”
. . .
“Karen, what are you thinking? You are helping the enemy build a force to destroy our homeland!”
Ourei left off her normal ploy of carrying on pleasant conversation aloud for the benefit of any ears at the door. She glared at Karen angrily, tugging her hands away from Karen’s grasp. Karen snatched her hand back. She couldn’t focus enough to keep an extensive conversation unless they were touching.
“With how slow the last two days have gone, even with my help, it will take weeks, or even months for them to be ready to ride into battle. Most of them were scared of horses to begin with, and the rest are now that they’ve seen a few chests crushed and heads split open. You’re the one that was convinced a miracle is on its way before that could happen. This way, I am free to wander the keep and work out how we are all getting out of here. I haven’t gotten a chance to slip into where they’re holding Kelly yet, but once I have that worked out, I just have to find your father and we’re all out of here!”
“It is still treason against your king, Karen.”
“Where was the king when Longmyst was attacked?” Karen hissed angrily, “I’ve not seen or heard of any Tyrian forces coming to our rescue. The only Tyrian you’ve even mentioned is coming because of blood, not a crown. If it means that much to you, have your father execute me after I save the both of you!”
A knock from the door echoed slightly through Ourei’s stone room.
“Tha captain wishes Raven to meet him in his quarters.” A man’s voice called through the door.
Karen stood, keeping her gaze fixed on Ourei. She couldn’t believe the spoiled noble girl would be too closed-mined to see Karen was helping the only way she could. It was easy to wait patiently when your prison was a well-furnished suite in a tower, but Karen was sure she’d change her tune waiting to be raped in a stinking slave pit. She turned and rushed to the door, flinging it open angrily.
“I am sorry, Karen. Please just be careful. I am not your enemy.”
Karen rushed through the dim corridors of the keep. She didn’t like helping the soldiers, but it wasn’t like she had much choice. If she didn’t at least go along with the captain’s orders, she wouldn’t have the ability to move freely enough to work out an escape plan. She could even be taken out of the keep entirely. Teaching the Baedites how to sit upright in a saddle kept her in the game, and it wasn’t like they’d be any use against real cavalry riders. Karen was so furious with Ourei’s reaction to her good news, and had become so accustomed to thinking conversations at her, that she was still focused upon her tirade when she reached Gerizim’s door almost by surprise. She gave a soft knock.
“Come in, Raven.” The captain’s voice called from within. “Next time put some of that spirit into your knock.”
Karen stepped into the captain’s chamber to find him swatting at shadows with the great maul from the armor wall. She shied back a step and watched quietly from the far side of the stone table. Gerizim alternated between broad, sweeping arcs and sudden, stomping, two-handed jabs with the flat of the hammer’s head. She observed his frightening, but somehow elegant dance for some time in silence.
“Shouldn’t you be hitting a bag or a dummy or something?” Karen finally asked.
Gerizim froze the hammer midway through one of its broad arcs. The torque from the halted blow curled and cracked the mat beneath his feet, but he stood still as stone for several breaths before lowering the hammer and hanging it back on its posts.
“Only when you are learning how to strike a foe without breaking your own wrists.” Gerizim finally answered, “Eventually, you reach a point where only a live target builds any real skill. For practice, a missed blow is tha most exhausting, so fighting shadows builds endurance and keeps you in tune with the way tha implement moves.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever need to learn to fight.” Karen laughed softly, though her laughter died as Gerizim stared at her intently.
“Find one that suits your fancy.” The captain directed her with a nod.
Karen shook her head, “I don’t need a weapon.”
“These aren’t weapons. They’re tools with a singular purpose. Your eyes, ears, and mind are tha weapons. You are tha weapon.” Gerizim strode over and, placing his hand across the small of her back, led her out onto the mat. “A master thief once crept into tha keep and made off with a sack of coin and silver works. He made it most of tha way to tha gate before running afoul of a guard and being gutted. Now if a skilled thief could not manage an escape without having to fight at least once, what chances do you give yourself? Besides, Raven, tha agreement was that you obey my orders.”
Karen swallowed and walked along the walls. She eyed the glinting weapons as they drifted past. She paused in front of the captain’s maul. Reaching a hesitant hand out to touch the haft, Karen was surprised to feel it still warm, or rather hot, along the grip. She gave a small exclamation and snatched her hand back.
“I am what the Dracis call a Fire Soul; one of two ancient lines of noble blood granted special gifts by tha Dragons, long ago..” Gerizim explained, “Within us, passion burns so hot as to become real flame. It is not normally evident, but after hours of exertion it can bleed into what we carry, or wear.”
“I can choose any of these?” Karen asked as she eyed the beautiful worn weapons along the central wall of the training area.
“Just choose one you can lift.”
“Are these all yours?” Karen wondered aloud as she paced back along the wall.
“In a manner of speaking.” The captain replied, “Save for tha maul and Orcish hammer, they were taken from fallen foes that neared my equal, in tha days I chased my fortune and glory as a legionnaire for the Golden Emperor.”
Karen paused in front of a long two-handed blade that hung naked by its hilt. The sword had caught her eye before when she first looked over Gerizim’s collection. The blade, hilt, and pommel were of an inky black metal that seemed almost transparent as colored glass. Swirls of silver were visible just beneath the surface of the long, narrow blade. Each ebon arm of the ribbed cross-guard ended in a stylized dragon claw, grasping a white pearl larger than the end of her thumb. The pommel finished in a similar
fashion, but with twin claws grasping a perfectly round pearl nearly as large as her fist. Each hand grip also finished in pearlescent white, separated by a gold band ringed in tiny rubies the size of teardrops. Karen stroked the smooth, cold surface of the blade, its dark luster hypnotizing her.
“The metal of this blade is beautiful.”
“Dusk Silver.” Gerizim replied, “It’s some mixture of silver and magical glass they use on tha Ashen Peninsula. It’s as hard as tha purest tempered steel and, aside from its beauty, is said to be a bane to magical constructs of any sort and never corrodes or ages. That blade I took from the leader of a mercenary band turned to brigandry; called themselves tha dragon brothers or some nonsense. But I suppose now tha Raven has found her beak.”
Karen turned and shook her head, but couldn’t help a grin that belied her declination, “That’s alright, there’s a steel blade over there that will do. That thing must be worth more than my entire hometown.”
Gerizim was upon her in a flash. He seized her cheeks between thumb and forefinger. The force of the Dracis’ presence as much as his strength pressed Karen’s back against the wall of weapons. Her focus was almost entirely upon the warmth of his scaled hands and the points of his nails resting against the sides of her face.
“Nothing but your blood is ever worth more than your home, little Raven.” Gerizim snarled, then slowly released Karen’s jaw and turned to stalk out the door. “Take down tha sword and come with me.”
Karen rubbed her jaw, stung more by the captain’s words than his grip. She hastily pulled down the dusk silver blade and trotted briskly after Gerizim. The captain led her down onto the drill grounds, where a small collection of soldiers were sparring in the early evening air. At the Dracis’ gesture, one of the soldiers surrendered his blade.
“Um,” Karen shifted nervously as Gerizim squared off in front of her. “What about hitting a dummy so I don’t break my wrists?”
Gerizim laughed and swatted the flat of his blade against Karen’s. The girl gave a yelp and let the sword fall, evoking a chuckle from the soldiers gathering around. Karen glared at the captain as she rubbed her stinging palms together.
“First, you have to learn to hold tha thing so you could put that much force into a blow.” Gerizim pointed to Karen’s fallen blade with his own. “Pick it up. Your grip needs to be firm enough to control the blade, but not so tight that bone is pressed to the handle.”
Karen rubbed her palms on her hips and bent to pick up the blade, “You could have just told me that in the first place. That hurt.”
“Pain and fear are a fighter’s constant companions.” The captain rapped her blade again, though she kept hold this time. “They are his worst enemies, best friends, but more than anything, teachers. How a fighter deals with these twins determines whether he is a warrior or a corpse. Pain or fear can paralyze you, or drive you forward harder if you make tha conscious choice.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
Without warning, Gerizim leapt forward with a sudden cross-swing at the level of Karen’s throat. Karen staggered backward and brought the heavy sword up, barely deflecting the attack and even more narrowly keeping her feet.
“Do you want to live?”
“Yes.” Karen panted, feeling her bones quiver in terror. She watched in slow motion as Gerizim closed again and drove his blade at her stomach. Karen wasn’t certain, she might have screamed, but managed to evade the thrust by surrendering the last of her balance and tumbled onto her side.
“Do you wish to be free?”
“Yes!” Karen shouted up at him. She hated giving the bastard satisfaction, but couldn’t stop her eyes from streaming salty tears.
“Then you want to fight.” Gerizim turned and walked back to his original position. “As a child, my grandsire was captured by Frostbone raiders, taken from Frosthold back into Nilheim as a slave. Tha Orcs there believe slaves deserve their station because they are weak. If a slave can challenge and slay his master, he can stay or go, but is free. My grandsire walked out of Nilheim and into Baeden when he was thirteen. Sergeant! Can you hear me clearly?”
“Aye, Captain!” A grizzled elder among the soldiers barked without hesitation.
“If Raven can fell me on this training ground, my standing order is for you to escort her to the city gates with a horse and sack of gold from my coffers. She will be free to go where she wills.”
Karen looked at the old soldier. Neither he, nor any of the others were laughing. She gathered her feet beneath her and recovered her sword. As she hefted the weighty blade again, Karen silently wished she’d picked a dagger or short-sword.
With a roar that surprised her, Karen rushed Gerizim. The captain easily deflected her first arcing strike, as well as the second and third. Karen tried a thrust, and the Dracis stepped to the side and drove the pommel of his sword into her stomach, knocking the wind from her. Before she quite knew what was happening, the back of Gerizim’s fist crashed into the side of her head. Karen crashed into the packed dirt of the training yard as her blade spun off out of her reach. When she regained her senses, the Dracis was still standing over her.
“Get up.”
Karen struggled to press herself up from the dirt, but her vision immediately spun and her stomach cramped tightly.
“Can’t.” She gasped.
“In tha will to rise up when you cannot, you find strength, life, and freedom.” Gerizim stated flatly, then tossed the borrowed blade to its owner and stalked back toward the keep. “Get up and come to supper. You will train more tomorrow and can try again when you’re healed.”
Karen watched the captain vanish into the keep’s side gate. She was equally certain she could no more eat than rise. She slowly pressed up again. When her stomach tightened, she bit into her lip and scrambled her feet forward until she swayed to her feet. The aged sergeant caught her arm and steadied her as he handed her blade back to her hilt-first.
“Brace up, Miss Raven.” He muttered, “He were gentler with you than any o’ his brood’s first lesson.”
17
Autumn’s Fall
The Clockward end of the Brogan Vale became marshy and overgrown. Nian couldn’t hope to ride through the dense tangle of scrub and briar that seemed to grow denser the further he went towards the greater drake’s domain. One of the tiny pinpoints of light, Riona called them sprites, patiently led him through the unpleasant maze. More than once, she, at least he assumed it was a she based on her similar form to the queen’s light, had warned him off of a pool of quicksand as he waded through the boggy soil, still sinking halfway up his calves more often than not.
Gatefyre was clearly not enthusiastic to be wading through the muck. He’d tug Nian toward higher ground whenever it became available, even though anything solid seemed to be home to one of the thorny briar bushes that choked the dimly lit forest floor. Still, the horse seemed to understand the sprite’s sweet-sounding hums and warbles at least as well as Nian did, perhaps better.
Nian managed to gauge by general tone whether the sprite was being positive or negative. He was even somewhat sure he had figured out when it was asking him a question, though he generally had to guess the nature of the question. He seemed to be right almost half the time. Some might find that a poor average, but Nian felt pretty good about his progress, especially since not understanding the language was only the basic hurdle. It seemed that every different sort of fairy varied widely in how they perceived the world and what they thought was important.
Sprites seemed to play less pranks than what Nian liked to call the three ies; nixies, pixies, and brownies. They, or this one at least, liked to dance and play tag, no matter what was going on. She liked to lead people too, which may have been part of why the queen sent one as a guide. However, she really didn’t like when people didn’t follow. Apparently, Gatefyre was as much a people as Nian to her thinking, and she seemed to
get furious when he’d veer off of her path to climb onto a small hill to rest or nibble at a tuft of grass.
Then, quite abruptly, the forest, and the bog beneath ended. Nian forced his way through a tangle of brambles using Kaesa’s broad shield and found his feet on dry, cracked earth so dark brown as to be almost black. Lowering the shield, Nian had to try twice to catch his breath. Before him, a great swath of devastation replaced the thick, ancient forest. The dark soil drifted along in low, even rolls like a patch of tranquil sea that had been frozen in an instant and stained black. Almost all sign of the once vast forest was erased for miles. Here and there, the charred stump of a particularly stout old tree still clung rotting to the cracked earth. Across the desolate landscape, ash wound along over the ground, tracing the wind in bleak, grey lines, twirling into colorless vortices, and gathering into great drifts like sand in a desert. The air was instantly different as well. Even in the choked bog, the air had smelled fresh and clean. Outside the bramble hedge, the odor of soot and sulfur made the air thick with its reek.
Nian had never quite shared Rowan’s love of the deep, wild woodlands. However, he could not resist pausing to mourn the contrast between this blasted land and the quiet, crystal brooks around the brogan caves, the fairy queen’s ancient Dryad grove of ash wood, or even the thorny bog he had just been wishing away.
Nian’s sorrowful reverie was disrupted by the sprite’s annoyed warbling. She was right, stopping here was volunteering to be a snack. Nian couldn’t be certain that was exactly what she said, but he figured it was close enough. He walked to Gatefyre’s side and stooped to scrape the caked mud off the beast’s legs. The lithe stallion gave a little quiver, Nian imagined he was either grateful or ticklish, and gave a soft chuckle as he wiped his hands clean on his trousers. Hopping up onto the horse’s back, Nian looked about for some sign of where to go next.
