Féolan had no answer. “We will keep looking tomorrow,” he said. Tomorrow, they both knew, might be too late.
T
EN MINUTES LATER
they were climbing again, heading for a place where a wall of rock was scored and pitted with dark openings. “There should at least be a cave or fissure there where we can get out of the wind,” suggested Féolan. Though the summer sun brought bright warm days, the mountain air was chilly at night. They passed and rejected several possibilities, where the cracks in the rock were too narrow or shallow for comfort. Then came a great break in the cliff-side, several paces wide. They peered into the crevice, already deeply shadowed at the far end.
“It may be sheltered from the wind, but it hardly looks cozy,” offered Féolan doubtfully. “Let’s look a little ways farther. We can return here at need.”
Gabrielle picked her way across the yawning gap. Then, from deep within the passage, she heard a wheezing sigh—wind maybe, whistling through some narrow outlet. But the crunch of rock that accompanied it was no trick of the wind. Something was in there.
Gabrielle swallowed. Her heart raced, as she watched Féolan string his bow and nock in an arrow. Never before had she feared the wild creatures of the woods, but in this stark place, with nightfall on their heels, the danger was palpable. They listened. Nothing. Then—a grunt, breathy and labored. And a keening cry—soft now, soft and strangely tender, but unmistakably the voice they had been following. The hair lifted on Gabrielle’s neck.
She had heard men grunt with the pain of injury, heard women grunt with the exertion of childbirth. She had never heard a cry like that.
Féolan looked a question. Eyes wide, Gabrielle nodded. They would go in. Féolan pointed to the sword sheathed at her side. Reluctantly, she drew it. He was right again. In a sudden attack, there would be no time to fumble with weapons. They crept in step by step, allowing their eyes to adjust to the deepening gloom.
The sounds came from the deepest recesses of the crevice, which curved as it penetrated the mountain. Cautiously, they eased around the bend. Gabrielle stiffened in shock.
Two large figures were revealed, indistinct against the rock wall. One lay, knees drawn up. The other crouched beside. The crouching figure rocked back and forth, keening softly. Gabrielle thought at first it was a huge man—but it wasn’t. The creatures before her were furred, and they were larger than any man.
“Seskeesh
,” Féolan breathed beside her. He seemed almost transfixed with wonder. “I have heard of them. But never...”
Gabrielle, determined not to be more frightened than Féolan, stood her ground and stared. The prone figure let out a shallow grunting breath. Was it ill? Gabrielle looked at the creature carefully this time, through her healer’s eyes. She noted the uneven heave of its chest, the awkward tilt of the head, the stiff limbs. It was suffering, she was sure of it.
Hardly aware of her actions, Gabrielle stepped forward. The crouching
seskeesh
’s head snapped up, and in an instant it—
she
, Gabrielle saw—towered before them, roaring defiance. Eight feet tall at least, powerful beyond man or Elf, savage with fury, she was terrifying; yet Gabrielle was not frightened. Somehow she
knew the creature would not leave her fallen companion to attack unless she had to.
“Féolan, don’t shoot,” she shouted. Could he hear in that awful din? Alertness radiated from him, humming like a bowstring. The creature—
seskeesh
, did he call it?—would have to be fast as lightning to reach her unharmed.
Slowly, deliberately, Gabrielle let her sword slip out of her grasp. She opened her empty hands wide and stepped a little closer. She took a deep breath, wondering if it would be one of her last. Unpracticed as she was, what hope had she really of reaching this alien mind? Yet she would try. She closed her eyes and stretched out her awareness.
It took only seconds. The
seskeesh
’s emotions blazed at her, fuelled by a fierce intelligence. Fear, grief, rage—they burned unveiled by any pretence, far easier to sense than a human’s. It was her mate that lay dying. She would defend even his body with her last breath. Gabrielle groped for a way to make herself understood. She sent her own sorrow. She sent images of herself treating wounded men—but what would bandages and herbs mean to a wild creature? She imagined herself at the wounded
seskeesh
’s side, healing light flowing through her hands.
The
seskeesh
had quieted. Her attention was wholly on Gabrielle, and Gabrielle opened her eyes now and met the searching gaze of a pair of deep-set amber eyes.
Let me help
, Gabrielle pleaded silently.
Trust me.
Slowly the great shoulders lowered. Then the eyes snapped behind Gabrielle toward Féolan, still poised to shoot, and the fur seemed to bristle as a low rumbling filled the
seskeesh
’s throat.
“Féolan,” said Gabrielle quietly. “I have to help her. I think it will be all right if you lay down your bow.”
“She could break your neck with one swipe,” he returned. “I can’t protect you once you’re working on him.”
“I know,” she said tightly. “Let’s hope he doesn’t die under my hands.”
She heard Féolan’s sigh, read into it all his worry, exasperation—and pride. “Healers,” he muttered. She knew he had lowered his bow when the
seskeesh
settled back on her heels, watchful but no longer threatening. Gabrielle squared her shoulders and approached her new patient.
I
N
his darkest imaginings and fears, he had not foreseen this: to be cast as a traitor. Yet here he was, hands bound like a common criminal, blood dripping unattended from his nose. Hardly the welcome he had expected.
Derkh had known the true tale of his stay in Verdeau would be beyond belief in Greffier. He had planned instead to say he had been taken prisoner and then escaped. But he had not anticipated a hostile interrogation, so he had not worried overly about the details of his story as he approached his countrymen’s camp.
“Prisoner, eh? And I suppose your clothes were piled neatly at the door, waiting for you?”
“I kept my clothes the whole time.”
“Oh, aye. They must have had a nice washing and mending service for the prisoners of war. Three squares and complimentary haircuts too, I don’t doubt.” The burly soldier eyed Derkh with suspicion. “You’re uncommon healthy-looking for a jailbird, boy.”
Derkh remembered too well the one time he had accompanied Col to the military prisons: the filth, the prisoners’ sores and matted hair, the smell, the constant coughing. It had been a place of utter misery. He tried a new tack.
Summoning to his mind his father’s confident authority, Derkh stood straight, looking his interrogator directly in the eye. “Do you not wish to know who I am?” he asked quietly. “Captain, is
it?” he added, noting the small pin on the right shoulder. Doubt entered the man’s hard eyes. The young man had a compelling dignity for a scrawny coward-traitor.
“Well? Identify yourself.”
“I am the eldest son of Commander Col, head of the Greffaire armed forces. I fought nearly to my own death at the first battle of the invasion, and if I am now treated with dishonor for returning to my own country, I assure you the displeasure of the High Command will be worse than any Verdeau prison.”
The shock on their faces was gratifying, at least. Most of the soldiers snapped to attention and made to bow their heads. But the captain, better informed than his strike force, broke the tension with a derisive snigger.
“Col’s son! Now here’s a lad who’s in for a sad surprise. I have news for you, boy. Your daddy’s no longer the big cheese in Greffier. He’s the man as botched the war, he is, and the Emperor’s in a right rage against anyone whose name even rhymes with ‘Col.’ You’d do better not to go advertising your bloodline, you would.”
Derkh could not hide his dismay. But as laughter swelled among the men, a hot anger rose in him.
“Is this how the emperor repays loyal service? My father laid down his life for the emperor’s so-called glory. I would die rather than deny his blood.” The truth of his own words came to him with a relief so deep it overrode, for a moment, his danger: he was not ashamed of his father, after all. He was not ashamed of himself.
“Ah, you’ll have your chance soon enough, I’ll warrant.” The captain shrugged and turned away. “Keep him bound and watch him close,” he ordered. “They’ll want to question this one real thorough-like.”
A tall balding soldier ambled over and shoved Derkh to the ground, tying his ankles together so that any kind of comfortable sleep was impossible. The man hawked and spat before speaking: “You’ll be watched through the night, so lie quiet. Bother anyone’s sleep and you’ll pay—get it?”
Derkh got it, all right. He got that he had made a terrible mistake. There would be nothing for him in Greffier. Worse than nothing: humiliation and poverty at best, with death the more likely outcome. He had been a fool. Shivering in the biting mountain air, Derkh stared up at the stars and thought how strange it was that the Elves were so entranced with starlight. To him, they looked as bitter and cold as the bleakness in his own heart.
T
HROUGH THE LONG
chill night Gabrielle worked, while Féolan and the great creature at her side kept vigil.
She didn’t dare, at first, attempt anything that would cause pain to the fallen
seskeesh
. So she began with her mind, sinking into the concentration that washed away all fear and distraction. Three wounds there were altogether, the ugliest with the spear-point still embedded deep in the flesh. This she left—she could do little before the weapon was drawn. The long slash along his rib cage looked dramatic, but the strong bones beneath had prevented the spear from penetrating farther. It would heal on its own, if need be. Gabrielle’s hands hovered over the neck wound. Small but gaping, it had formed a sticky pool of blood under her patient. And still it bled. In her mind’s eye she saw the torn blood vessels, felt the powerful throb of a huge heart pumping the creature’s blood out onto the rocks. Almost miraculous, it was, that the two great blood vessels bonemenders called the “heart paths” had been missed. She bent her head and felt the warm light flood into the
wound through her hands. She sent it to ripped veins and arteries, surrounding them with light, and clamped down with her mind to seal the frail walls together.
For two hours, man and beast watched and saw nothing. The fallen
seskeesh
lay in uneasy sleep. The wound, outwardly, remained unchanged, for Gabrielle worked deep in the tissues where the true danger lay. Bleeding controlled, she searched for the dark particles that signaled dirt or infection, making of the light a barrier against them. Under her hands, damaged flesh began to regenerate and rejoin, becoming whole again.
Now she paused, considering. The spear must be pulled. She could feel the flesh around its point starting to fester. But though the female
seskeesh
seemed confident now that Gabrielle and Féolan meant no harm, she did not yet trust in Gabrielle’s skill. She needed to
see
some improvement in her mate before she could allow Gabrielle to do what must be done. And so Gabrielle worked on, an hour more, hoping her patient’s innate strength would keep infection from the spear at bay. She worked until the neck wound was no more than a shallow nick, and then she opened her eyes to the world.
It was fully dark now. The moon, nearly full in a clear sky, would be a bright beacon over the earth, but it was not high enough to penetrate their sheltered corner. Gabrielle sensed, rather than saw, the four eyes trained upon her, alert and protective. His mate and my mate, she thought. We are not so different after all.
“I need water now, and light, and a fire before I freeze solid,” she said to Féolan. The night had seeped right into her bones while she worked. He looked doubtful. “Water and light I can do,” he said. Slowly, so as not to alarm their companion, he rose to his feet and shrugged out of his pack, then unhooked the water skin.
“Is it enough?” he asked, handing it to Gabrielle.
“For now,” she replied. “Oh, and I guess one of our blankets will have to go.” The
seskeesh
tensed as Féolan drew his knife, but allowed them to cut the blanket into quarters unhindered. Gabrielle trickled water from the skin onto one piece, and rinsed the bloody, matted neck fur around the wound. “Now the candles,” she murmured.
Féolan had just finished fitting the two stubby travel candles into their copper holder. She heard the scratch of the striker and felt the
seskeesh
start. As the tiny flame caught hold, the big female barked in alarm and drew up on her haunches. Afraid of fire, realized Gabrielle. She reached out a reassuring hand, encountered coarse hair covering a limb like a tree trunk.
“Put it out!” In a single moment of panic, Féolan could be killed. Gabrielle waited until she felt the great muscles ease and sink back, and then sent her thoughts out through her fingers. Images of harmless light—moonlight, sunlight—and above all the need to see her patient’s injuries. She had no doubt the creature’s night vision was better than hers, better even than Féolan’s, but she wanted a really clear view.
No harm, no hurt
, she promised. How under the stars could such things be conveyed, without words? It took long, precious minutes, but at last Gabrielle felt it safe for Féolan to try again. This time, though the
seskeesh
bristled under Gabrielle’s hand, she allowed Féolan to approach with the little lamp. When the small pool of light fell directly on her patient’s wound, Gabrielle drew back, and gestured for the
seskeesh
to look.
The creature’s amazed delight touched her deeply, but there was no time to bask.
“Féolan, that spear must be drawn,” she murmured.
His troubled eyes, dark in the wavering candlelight, met hers. “I know it,” he replied. “It’s been on my mind this past hour.”
D
ERKH WAS CATAPULTED
from a thin sleep, heart pounding as though it would burst. Eyes wide in the inky blackness, he struggled to grasp what had wakened him. All around him men cursed and leapt to their feet, but the inhuman roar that had rent the night had already faded away. The dark silence covered it, and it was as though it had never been.