Touch of Power (2 page)

Chapter 2

A low cough woke me from a sound sleep. Instincts kicked in and I jumped to my feet before I realized where I was. In jail, awaiting execution.

“Easy,” a man said. He stood near the door to my cell. Although armed with a sword, he wasn’t wearing the town watch’s uniform. Instead, he wore a short black cape, black pants and boots. The lantern’s glow lit the strong and familiar features of his face. I remembered him from the crowd that gawked at my arrest.

I waited.

“Are you truly a healer?” he asked.

“You saw the tattoo.”

“For a town on the edge of survival, twenty golds is a considerable sum. I’ve learned that desperate people do desperate things, like tattoo an innocent person. Is that what happened to you?” He leaned forward as if my answer was critical.

“Who wants to know?” I asked.

“Kerrick of Alga.”

I’d thought he was a town official, but the Realm of Alga was north of the Nine Mountains. If he wasn’t lying, then he had traveled far from his home. “Well, Kerrick of Alga, you can go back to your bed and rest easy. The watchmen caught the right girl…and by tomorrow this town will be safe once again.” Which wasn’t entirely true. At twenty years of age, I wouldn’t call myself a girl, but
woman
sounded too…formal.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Why do you care?”

“It’s important.” He sounded so sincere and he stared at me as if I held
his
fate in my hands.

I huffed. What did it matter now? “Avry.”

“Of?”

“Nowhere. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

“It does.”

“Of Kazan. Happy?”

Instead of answering, Kerrick clutched the bars with both his hands and leaned his forehead against them for a moment. I had thought he felt guilty about my impending execution, but his recent behavior failed to match.

When he knelt on one knee, worry replaced curiosity. He withdrew long metal picks from a pocket. I backed away as fear swirled. Should I yell for the guards? What if he already had knocked them out?

He unlocked the cell. The door swung open. By this time, I had reached the back wall.

Straightening, he gestured. “Come on.”

I didn’t move.

“Do you want to be executed?”

“Some things are worse than death,” I said.

“What… Oh. I won’t hurt you. I promise. I’ve been searching for a healer for two years.”

Now I understood. “You want the bounty for yourself.”

“No. You’re worth more alive than dead.” He paused, knowing he had said the
wrong
thing. “I meant, I need you to heal someone for me. Once he’s better, you can go back into hiding or do whatever you’d like.” Although muffled, raised voices and the sounds of a commotion reached us. Kerrick glanced to his left. “But if you don’t come right now, there won’t be another chance.” He held out his hand.

I hesitated. Trust a complete stranger or remain in jail and be executed in the morning? If he was sincere, Kerrick’s offer meant I would have my life back. My life on the run. Not appealing, but that survival instinct, which had spurred me on these past three years, once again flared to life. What if he was lying? I’d deal with it later. Right now, it didn’t matter; living suddenly took precedence over dying.

I grabbed his hand. Warm calloused fingers surrounded mine. He tugged me down the corridor. I hadn’t been paying close attention when I had arrived, but I knew this way led to more cells. There was one door into the jail. And loud noises emanated from that direction. Fear twisted. Crazy how a few hours ago I hadn’t cared if I lived or died, but now a desperate need to live consumed me.

Our way dead-ended, but Kerrick pushed open the last cell’s door. Moonlight and cold air streamed from a small window high on the stone wall.

Kerrick whistled like a night robin. A young man poked his head though the opening. “What took you so long?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer as he reached both hands out.

“Grab his wrists,” Kerrick said as he boosted me up.

I clasped wrists with him. He pulled me through the window with surprising speed and strength for a skinny kid. His feat was due to the two men holding his legs. He reached in for Kerrick and I noticed the window had been covered with iron bars at one time. The stumps of the bars appeared as if they had rusted right through.

Glancing around, I understood why these men had used this window. The back of the jail faced a pasture and stable for the watchmen’s horses. Since the jail marked the edge of town, there were no other buildings behind it. Just the well-used north-south trade route.

Kerrick joined us. A crash echoed, a man cursed and then the pounding drum of many boots grew louder, heading toward us.

“Belen.” Kerrick sighed the name.

“Flee or fight?” the young man asked.

Kerrick glanced at me. “Flee.”

After hopping the pasture’s fence, we raced to the woods. The herd of watchmen behind us sounded as if they would tread on my heels at any moment. The last remnants of the drowning sickness impeded my breathing and I gasped for air. For a second, I marveled that Fawn had lived as long as she had.

When we reached the edge of the forest, Kerrick shouted, “Become one with nature, gentlemen. We’ll meet at the rendezvous point.” He snatched my hand.

Kerrick led me through the dark woods, but my passage sounded loud compared to his. However, my stumbling noises became undetectable when the watchmen chasing us burst into the woods. The cracks of breaking branches and crunching leaves dominated.

They soon settled and moved with care, pausing every couple of minutes to listen for us. Holding their lanterns high, they spread into a line. I counted twenty points of light. Kerrick stopped when they did, but our progress remained agonizingly slow. I feared my recapture was imminent unless we encountered a Death Lily first and it consumed us. I shuddered at the thought. I’d rather go to the guillotine than be snatched by a man-eating plant.

“There they are,” a voice called.

I froze, but Kerrick seized my shoulders, ordered me to stay quiet and flung us to the ground. We rolled through the underbrush. A strange vibration pulsed through my body. The sounds of pursuit approached. Convinced they would trample us, I clung to him as my world spun. We halted with me flat on my back.

Kerrick covered me from view. He kept most of his weight on his elbows. He peered to our right. Shadows bounced as boots stepped near us. A few watchmen came within inches.

My throat itched with the need to cough. I suppressed the overwhelming desire to squirm, to yell, to scratch. Then the rustling of leaves and tread of boots faded. I relaxed, but Kerrick kept his protective position.

“Once they realize they lost us, they will come back,” he said.

So I remained still despite the cold dampness from the recent rains soaking into my clothes. Despite Kerrick’s warm body pressed against mine. Despite his intoxicating scent tickling my nose. He smelled of living green, moist earth and spring sunshine. Two of the three made sense, since leaves and dirt covered his clothes as well as mine. I couldn’t explain the sunshine. The fall season was in full swing. I suspected my lack of sleep played a role in altering my senses.

To distract myself from my uncomfortable position and his closeness, I watched the moon descend through the trees. It would set soon, leaving us in total darkness for a few hours.

As Kerrick had predicted, the watchmen returned. Light swept dangerously close. Footsteps crunched nearby. My heart thumped so loud, I swore it would give us away. And just when I wanted to scream, they were gone.

We waited for a while, listening for many nerve-racking minutes…hours…days. Or so it seemed. Finally, Kerrick stood and pulled me to my feet. I swayed. Icy air clawed at my skin through my wet clothes.

He scanned the sky. “We need to put as much distance between us and Jaxton before sunrise,” he said. “Can you keep up?”

I drew in a deep breath, testing my lungs. The drowning sickness had finally gone. “Yes.”

“Good.” He took my hand.

A tingle spread up my arm. I debated breaking his hold, but Kerrick moved through the forest with confidence. Once the moon set, the trail disappeared. Kerrick slowed our pace, but otherwise he continued on as if he could see in the dark, leaving me stumbling in his wake.

By the time the sun rose, I had lost all sense of direction, I was frozen and exhausted. Trusting this stranger seemed like a good idea in the middle of the night, but in the light of day, I questioned my judgment. What would stop Kerrick from turning me in for the bounty after I healed his friend? Nothing. His promise not to hurt me hadn’t included his accomplices. Still, for now, my head remained attached to my shoulders. A positive thing. I decided to stay alert and stick to my own survival instincts—taking it one problem at a time.

As daylight lit the red, yellow and orange colors of the forest, Kerrick increased his pace. I dug in my heels and tried to extricate my hand from his, but he wouldn’t let go.

Stopping to glance at me in annoyance, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

“I need to rest. Healers are not indestructible. If I’m too weak, I won’t be able to cure your friend.”

While he considered, I studied him. The color of his eyes matched the forest—russet with flecks of gold, orange and maroon. Blond streaks shot through his light brown hair. Most of his shoulder-length locks had escaped a leather tie. He was five inches taller than my own five-foot-eight-inch height. And I guessed he was five to ten years older than me.

“It’s too dangerous to be out in the open. We’re not far from the rendezvous point,” he said.

“How long?”

“Another hour. Maybe two. If you’d like, I can carry you.”

“No. I’ll be fine.”

He quirked a smile at my quick reply, causing his sharp features to soften just a bit. Some women might think him pleasing to the eye in a rugged way. Four thick scars—two on each side of his neck appeared to be bite marks from some beast.

As he pulled me along, I wondered what animal had had its teeth around Kerrick’s throat. The ufa were reported to be thriving and breeding like rabbits. Feeding off the plague victims’ dead bodies, the large carnivore possessed the strength and pointed canines to rip open a man’s throat. Packs of them lived in the southern foothills of the Nine Mountains.

After another hour of hiking, I lost all feeling in my feet. I stumbled. Kerrick grabbed my arm, preventing me from falling.

“Another two miles,” he said.

“Just…give me…a minute,” I puffed while he didn’t have the decency to even appear winded. “Aren’t you tired?”

“No.” He gazed at the surrounding forest. “In the past two years, I’ve walked thousands of miles, searching for a healer.”

“No horses?”

“No. They’re too big to hide.” Seeing my confusion, he added, “We didn’t want anyone to know about our mission. Healers are skittish.”

“Most prey are.”

“True.”

“How many healers did you find in those two years?” I asked.

He met my gaze. “One.”

My heart twisted. “But you heard of others. Right?”

“Yes. Pattric of Tobory, Drina of Zainsk, Fredek of Vyg and Tara of Pomyt.”

Tara had been my mentor. I had lost track of her whereabouts during the awful plague years. “And?” I dreaded the answer.

“Executed before we could reach them.”

Even though I’d braced for it, the news slammed into me. I sank to the ground and covered my face with my hands. My little delusion that the healers had been holed up together burst. They hadn’t deserved their fate. Grief rolled through me, jamming at the base of my throat.

When the waves settled, I asked, “Anyone else?”

“Just you.”

“How did you find me?”

“Later. We need to keep moving. It’s not far.” He pulled me to my feet.

In a daze, I followed him. My hands and feet were numb. It was a shame I couldn’t say the same for my heart. There hadn’t been many healers before the plague—about a hundred. When my family had learned that Tara agreed to take me in as her student, we’d all been excited. My tattooing ceremony had been the best moment of my life.

Kerrick’s voice jerked me from my memories.

“In here,” he said, gesturing to a narrow opening between two oversize boulders.

I glanced around. The stones were part of a larger rock fall, resting at the base of a steep cliff.

Kerrick grabbed my wrist, tugging me along as he squeezed through the gap. Probably afraid he’d lose me. I guess I couldn’t blame him. If I had been searching so long, I’d be extra-protective, as well.

We entered a dark cave. The wet smell of limestone mixed with the acrid odor of bat droppings. Lovely. Kerrick paused to let our eyes adjust. After a few minutes, I noticed a yellow glow coming from our left. He turned in that direction and soon we arrived at a small chamber.

A campfire burned in the center of a ring of stones. The two leg-holders from last night’s rescue sat beside it. They scrambled to their feet with wide smiles when they noticed us.