Duality (2 page)

“You’re a brave man, Conn. Rest. Help will come soon.” She made a sign of protection over him.
Lady, guard him with the lad. Hold him for the Eagle. Shield him from the Boar
. “Conn, what happened to Rufus?”

He shook his head, regret in his eyes. “’Twas no way t’ keep track of aught but colors. Me guess? With King Hengist, chasing that greedy bastard Jalad back t’ Westmarche.”

“Thank you, Conn. I’ll see you again. Hang on.” Dara ignored her headache and kept going. She sense-cast for the Eagle and followed the pull. So many wounded, from White Pines, Rainbow Falls and the other Riverhead villages. No one had seen Rufus after the initial clash.

She wished she could sense-cast for a particular person. That Rufus lay dead or dying maddened her, but she wouldn’t forsake others on account of one.
Lady, am I twice-orphaned or nay?

A clue came from a young Rainbow Falls archer with sword-slashed ribs, sprawled against the half-rotted trunk of a fallen black oak. “Saw him fall.” He pointed. “Th’ Boars were goin’ t’ ride him down, but th’ northern riever on a big bay mare charged straight through them an’ kept them away.”

Dara bound his ribs. “A northern riever?”

The lad nodded. “Aye. Big, blond, demon with a sword.”

Well, blond hair marked the mysterious warrior as a northerner. Everyone in these lands had hair and eyes in shades of brown. Except Dara. Her family was also branded outlander, by their flame-colored tresses. She double-checked to ensure her own hair was still tucked under her hat. No point in standing out like a beacon.

Dara headed in the direction the lad had pointed. “Rufus. Rot your eyes, answer me if you can.”

“Here…”

Sense-sight overlapped physical sight in a dizzying shimmer. She followed the trail through the mist.

Rufus lay unnaturally still, legs at an impossible angle. Sickly yellow energy flickered around him, leaking sullen red and a growing blackness.

Dara knelt aside him. “What’ve you done?”

His eyes opened. “Axe in th’ back. Feel naught. Can’t move. Sense th’ shadow of th’ crone. But King Hengist got me message in time.” He sighed. “I’m glad fer th’ chance t’ say goodbye.”

Her heart seized on denial. She sense-cast again, hoping he was wrong, hoping for a way. Even if she burned herself out ’twas beyond her skill. The wound was mortal. Returning to the here-and-now broke her heart. The headache dug its claws in further. Even normal vision took intense concentration. “What can I do?”

He swallowed. “Foreign lad saved me. They cut his charger out from under him o’er there t’ me left. He favored his right side, fought left-handed with th’ air of settlin’ on second strength. Find him. Save him if ye can.”

“I will.”

Rufus pinned her with a sharp look. “Do ye not wonder there are no
Boar
survivors?”

Dara had been too busy to notice, but now he mentioned it… “Aye.”

“They slew their own as they retreated. Why?”

In other circumstances, this would have seemed yet another lesson. But Dara read the urgency in his gaze. “Secrets. Secrets they’d not want revealed under questioning.”

“Aye. I fear Jalad’s secrets. If th’ world ends head east as far as ye can. Help beyond yer wildest imaginin’ lies that direction.” He closed his eyes, opened them again. “Don’t grieve. I’ll sic Fanny’s ghost on ye…when I see her.”

“You can’t leave me alone.”

“Don’t leave me fer th’ wolves or th’ Boars t’ finish off.”

The horror of his words penetrated her grief. She stared at him in shock. His form wavered in a haze of tears. “I can’t do that. Rufus, please—”

“I can’t do it meself. Some things don’t heal. I’d die quick o’er slow.”

“Nay.” She hugged his broken body close, sobbing against his blood-matted hair. “You can’t ask this of me.”

“I’ve kept yer secrets. I taught ye t’ be strong…an’ do what’s right. Ye owe me yer life. One final favor. Then we’re e’en.”

“We’ll never be even.” Her voice broke.

His eyes were fierce, unafraid. “Ye can’t say no.”

She raged against the inevitable. Her shoulders sagged. “I love you,” she whispered.

His eyes shimmered. “An’ I you, little warrior.”

She drew a blade. It pierced his heart with the merest whisper of sound, even as it shattered hers.

He sighed, and his eyes closed one final time.

Heedless, edged with madness and despair, her scream tore across the battlefield in huge waves of fury. Around her, power shockwaves flattened everything in a circle the width of ten charger gallop strides. The inhuman shriek hammered across the landscape until she’d neither breath nor voice left.

Dara collapsed onto Rufus’ body, sick and shaking. First her grandmother. Then her mother. Then Fanny. Now Rufus. She was alone in a world gone mad.
I’ll kill them all. What do I do now
?

Rufus’ words came back. “
The foreign lad… Find him… Save him if ye can.”

Every enemy within hearing range would investigate her screams. Dara looked around. She had to regain control. Sorcery was banned. She’d seen many sent to the fires of the One Truth.

She staggered to the dead bay. No sign of the blond rider. She tried to sense-cast for Other, hoping for a clue. To her surprise, the faintest shimmer of power flickered ahead in the woods. Whoever it was must be too hurt or too much a stranger not to know what the use of power led to.

She scented blood on the breeze. Pain-from-outside sliced through the mist and crashed over her with a shocking force that dropped her to her knees. She struggled to filter it out, latching onto the projection.

On the Lady Goddess, she would not lose another life.

***

Loren ta Cedric lay crumpled beneath a healing hazel tree, struggled to breathe through endless waves of pain. Dark emotive magic had flared on the battlefield and he must be ready if whatever-it-was headed his direction. “
Dracken rue
!” Curse mortal horses, armor and weapons. Were Hani`ena here he would not be in this mess.

“How bad this time
?” a voice asked from far away. Of course Cedric ta Pari knew his son’s pain. The crown of Cymry allowed no less. “
Do we ride
?”

“Nay
.” Grasping the amulet around his neck, his granna’s parting gift, Loren took a shallow breath. “
Less than Boaden Meadows. It is well, Father. I shall heal
.”

“Alani worries. Hurry home
.”

Loren closed his eyes at the mention of the cool raven-haired beauty everyone expected him to wed upon his return. He wished not to disappoint Cedric, but eternity with a woman who did not support, let alone understand him was not at all appealing. He had more important issues to worry about than ambitious would-be princesses.

“Hengist still needs help. I stay.”

His father reluctantly withdrew.

Sifting “self” from pain, he began trance-healing. “
Banisha verilli far. Gloria verilli far…
” Breathing and pulse decreased. Blood flow slowed…slowed… Seeping wounds clotted together.

He summoned strength from pain and followed its path through his body, checking his injuries. He bled from half a dozen sword cuts. The worst was a deep laceration in his upper right thigh from an unhorsed Boar’s attempt to confiscate the bay mare. An arrow pierced his chest just below his right collarbone. He sighed. He would heal in time without scarring, but Lady it hurt.

He examined the grove with a warrior’s practiced eye. He did not like this exposed position in unsecured territory. A twig snapped. He focused on a young woodsman approaching from the battlefield. Grief and black rage hammered into Loren. The lad—but a boy, no beard growth—had to be half mad with it. Loss, emptiness, despair… The dark emotions threatened to drown Loren, and he fell out of trance to shield himself. Watching the other approach, he edged his sword closer.

The lad staggered toward him, not visibly injured, but with such gaping wounds to his soul Loren wondered at his ability to function at all.

“Been looking for you.” The lad eyed the bronze sword in Loren’s hand and spread his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. “Peace, friend. I’m a Safehold healer.” He took in Loren’s position at a glance. “So you know of hazel healing magic. You’re no follower of the One Truth.”

Loren knew the lad meant no harm. He caught pity and a desire to help. And truth-hidden. Not so worrisome. Who in these dark days had naught to hide?

The lad knelt aside him in the leaves and cradled Loren’s head in his lap as strong, slender fingers ran over his battered body with gentle, impersonal thoroughness. The sense-casting followed the arrow’s path and Loren’s soul shuddered at its touch. This human used the anathema of blood magic, not as the usual spells to dark powers, but as part of him, natural as breathing. The dark shimmering stole Loren’s breath as it coursed through him, and his seeming dissipated.

Without the seeming, the lad would see what he was. Not a man. Not human. Only Hengist knew him, King Hengist of Riverhead, his one real friend among Arcadian mortals. Followers of the ascending One Truth would roast him over an open fire as demon-born. No nonhumans were safe from the cleansing fires of religious fanaticism and racial supremacy that had swept these lands a century past. Hengist’s careful stewardship maintained a fragile truce of tolerance under cloaks of seemings and secrecy, but Loren held no illusions of what would happen should Count Jalad of Westmarche prevail.

The lad’s fingers found pointed ears under tangled hair. “Who—what—are you? You’re no northern merc. You’re elder.”

“
Curioni tempas achturo
.” Loren tapped his chest and frowned, struggling to make the lad understand. “Loren…” His hand dropped. True names held power, but there was no harm in saying just his first name aloud. It was common enough in the realm of the dawn.

The lad’s eyes welled. “Lady, ease his passing. For the lives he saved, let him enter the Hall of Fallen Heroes.”

How did a human know of the afterlife but not how warriors of the Light got there? How did he know the ritual words? Loren’s suspicion grew. A human wielder of blood magic communed with the Lady of Light, an ancient elder deity banned by most humans? There was no taint of evil about the lad, but the unmistakable touch of dark fire was upon him.

Footsteps preceded the stench of unwashed flesh, diverting his attention. Three armed men in black and red livery approached, blood crusted weapons drawn. “Look here, lads.” A bearded giant pointed a rust edged sword at the fallen warrior. “Count Jalad’ll pay a goodly bounty fer
him
.”

A shudder went through Loren’s companion as he eyed the Boars’ iron-blend weapons with fear-concealed and drew his knives. Something about the metal itself troubled the lad. A burning anger not his own left a bitter taste like ash in Loren’s mouth. “Leave him be. Rob the dead. This one still lives,” the lad said.

“Not fer long,” the bearded giant snarled. “He’s ours.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Well, since ye insist.” The man lunged.

The strangers’ glee and bloodlust turned Loren’s stomach. He tried to rise and cursed his weakness. Not again. For the second time in his life, he watched a smaller, younger soldier face off against multiple opponents bent on killing. Again Loren was unable to come to his aid, could only lie still and hold his breath as the drama unfolded. His defender was courageous and skilled, but outnumbered. Loren watched the dance of death.
When fighting for your life, drop the enemy and ensure they do not rise again
.

The lad flung himself beneath the bandit’s arm and rolled behind him. Then, as if he heard Loren’s advice, he leaped up and reached around his target’s neck. He buried his knife in the first attacker’s throat and jerked the blade backward, dropping away as the body fell.

Loren was impressed. Unlike Markale, this lad was as skilled a fighter as he had ever seen, well beyond his tender years. Healer and warrior? It was an unheard of combination.

The spray of blood shocked the others motionless. The lad launched himself at the nearer of the two, his blades flashing in a circle of death. Raising his bloodied sword in self-defense, the thick necked Boar threw himself backward. He could outreach his attacker, Loren noted, but the man’s fear and the lad’s speed stayed his sword for a critical moment.

The other Boar circled the lone defender. They separated, one to hold the lad occupied while the other finished him on the ground. Loren groaned. Could the lad handle both? The Boar approaching Loren was a rat-faced man with a wispy mustache. “Ye’re King Jalad’s prize now.”

“Never!” The lad’s scream of defiance hammered into all of them, flattening the two would-be murderers. Such raw, dark power. The lad had no finesse. His very form shimmered as he threw himself on the rat-faced bandit, a knife in each hand.

The man brought up his sword, the edge angled too much for a killing blow but still slicing along his attacker’s unprotected side. The lad cried out as blood soaked his shirt. There was a flicker of black lightning and a stench of sulfur so faint he might have imagined it. The knives flashed in the setting sun, then plunged down to disappear into the Boar’s body.