Prince of Bryanae (Bryanae Series) Page 10

  She slumped against the curved tunnel wall. Her shoulders began to shake. It was too much.

  But no, that mad insistent demon at the back of her mind continued to crack his whip against her hide, driving her forward.

  I can’t make it, she thought, but she knew that she would try anyway. She would continue. She’d never give up, never rest. She had driven herself for far too long to be able to stop now. There would be time for giving up when she was dead and not a moment sooner.

  All right, what then?

  She measured the distance to the closest treetops with her eyes. There was one almost directly beneath the opening, its conical spire poking out from the pack, but its foliage was too thick around any branches large enough to grasp. However, beside that one was a tree almost as tall, and with a large branch that Willow thought she might be able to grab.

  Might be able to?

  It was a reasonable question. Why risk her life for a kingdom that had turned on her? She could go back.

  But do what then? Face Tamlevar’s accusations? Snyde’s post-coital possessiveness? Thirty years in Fyrelord’s Dungeons? An ignominious end dangling from a hangman’s noose?

  No, she had only had two homes in her life. One was here, and the other was back in Bryanae. She either fought for both or laid claim to neither.

  Willow brought her legs under her, winced as the mashed foot bumped against the stone. She gauged the distance to the treetop again.

  Now.

  She leapt into space.

  Chapter 24

  Willow cried out as she plummeted through the air towards the rapidly approaching trees. Her arms flailed trying to grasp at handholds that weren’t there. The roar of the wind deafened her; its abrasion numbed it.

  A quick check of her trajectory. She wasn’t going to reach her branch. She was drifting from the intended tree and towards the one that had been directly beneath the tunnel opening.

  This was by far the stupidest thing she had ever done. She was going to die.

  Willow had often heard that when you faced imminent death, you saw the events of your life parade before you. For her, she saw only one image as the the leaves and ground hurtled towards her.

  She saw her father.

  She saw him not as he had been when he had been murdered, nor on the day of his surrender to the Kards, but instead as he had been the day he had first taken her to the battlements to show her the realm. He had been handsome that day; majestic, wise, his silver hair glinting in the sun.

  In her vision, she saw him turn his head to look at her—not at his advisors, nor his wife, but at her, his daughter, his baera-ni, his shining star. In her mind, he smiled at her.

  “Daddy,” she cried, reaching out for him. The words were lost in the roar of the wind.

  Something slammed into her arm, slid down it towards her hand. Reflexively, she closed her hand around it. It was rough and unforgiving, with sharp bumps.

  It was ripped from her grasp, taking the skin of her palm with it. Next, her damaged foot crashed into another branch. Before she could cry out, she spun like a pinwheel until her head was pointing almost straight down.

  Leaves and branches rushed at her at incredible speeds. She shielded her face with her arm, yet her cheeks were whipped and gouged. A panicked shriek and a twist of her body prevented the sharp end of a twig from impaling her eyeball. Instead, it raked a terrible gash along her arm.

  A horizontal limb charged her like a bull, ready to smash her into jelly. She twisted, trying desperately to maneuver out of the way. She had nothing to grab, nothing to push against. Leaves stung her like a swarm of hornets. A smaller limb smacked her in the chest, knocking the wind from her.

  And still the enormous bough before her loomed.

  She turned her head. She couldn’t watch.

  A smaller branch caught her on the shoulder, spun her like top.

  She hit the large bough on her side, rolled off, continued to fall.

  She hit another, even larger limb. She grasped at it, clutched hold of a tiny offshoot. She lost her grip, continued falling.

  “Dammit!” she shrieked.

  Another branch smacked her in the head, and she saw a burst of white. Her face was raked by another twig. Her knee screamed as it was slammed by wood as solid as stone.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, she was hanging from a bough, both arms over it, her feet dangling.

  She clutched it tightly, pressed her face against it. Around her, the world seemed to spin at a frenetic speed.

  She held onto the bough as tightly as she could, half-expecting it to crack and break beneath her, as part of some cruel joke the universe would throw at her. But no, it held, and gradually the world’s gyrations subsided. Her hold remained. Blood trailed down her face and down her arms. She felt blood drip down her leg.

  She panted heavily for a while, trying to catch her breath, then carefully eased one leg over the bough and clutched it tightly like a child to her mother. After a while, when her breathing had returned to normal, she looked down.

  She reflexively clutched the bough tighter. If she hadn’t managed to grasp this bough, she would have had two, maybe three more chances and then there would have been nothing for many feet before she hit the ground.

  She crawled to the trunk, her bleeding hands aching. From there, she lowered her legs from her bough until the big toe of her good foot was on the next one. She eased her weight down. It held.

  Willow repeated the steps branch-by-branch, until her feet dangled above the ground. It was a fall of about twice her height. If it weren’t for her injury, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

  Still, it wasn’t like there was anywhere else to go. Either she fell to the ground, or she spent the rest of her life clinging to this tree. Below her, the green grass flowed like an ocean in the breeze.

  She suspended herself from the branch, her feet dangling four or five feet from the ground. She tucked her bad foot behind her knee.

  She let go, fell. Her good foot hit the ground. Her knee buckled. She converted the energy of the fall into a backward roll, but her head wasn’t tucked in enough and the back of her skull rapped with exquisite pain against a tree root. Tears formed in her eyes, but she was rolling too fast for them to go anywhere.

  At last, she stopped rolling at the base of the grassy hill. She looked up at the sky, at the trees about her that towered over her. Far, far above those trees, the black disc that was the tunnel opening gaped like a hole in the middle of reality.

  Had she really jumped down from all the way up there? She shook her head.

  What was wrong with her?

  BOOK TWO

  Warlord of Ignis Fatuus

  Chapter 25

  Willow knew she should get up, should find some hiding place from which she could watch the shores for the arrival of Vazerian and his captors. But her body had been abused for too long. She lay there on the soft grass, as comfortable as any mattress, imbibing the clean scent of the air of her home and she told herself she’d only close her eyes for a few moments.

  When she opened them again it was night. Her body was a massive array of aches. It hurt to move even her fingers or to blink. Blood had congealed on her arm, and into a gellatinous mat in her hair. Her head felt thick and she had trouble focusing her gaze.

  As her senses climbed from the grave, they belatedly told her something was amiss. She slowed her breathing, remained motionless. She listened, her mouth slightly open.

  Whispers. The sound made the tiny hairs on her arms raise.

  Was she being stalked?

  Her hand snaked across her hip for Tamlevar’s rapier but closed upon air. She must have lost during her fall from the tunnel. It was lying about somewhere, but where?

  Dammit, she didn’t even have a knife.

  The whispering was coming closer.

  Willow snaked her way through the grass to the nearest tree. She slid her good foot under her, then braced herself against the tree and brought her bad one und
er her too. The pain seemed dulled by the imminent danger.

  She remained crouching, concealed by the tree.

  How many of them were there, and were they hostile? Better to assume that they were.

  All right, she thought, here’s the plan.

  She waited, but no plan came to mind. Dammit, why was her mind so muddled? She didn’t have time for this. She needed to think.

  All right, this was what she would do. She’d wait until the one who was whispering passed by and she’d spring from the tree, catch him by surprise. Take his weapon; use it to deal with his allies.

  Feeble, Willow. Very feeble.

  But it was all she could come up with.

  As her muscles tensed to spring, she noticed a strange cadence to the whispering. A spell, perhaps?

  No matter. The whisperer was close now. She could see his shadowy form, approaching through the trees. Ten more steps.

  Five.

  Now.

  Willow leaped, pushing off from the tree. She sailed through the dark night air and caught the whisperer in his midsection, bringing him to ground with a thud. An instant later, she had his back. Her forearm lassoed his neck, choking any sound from him while her other hand sought his weapon.

  Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement. She couldn’t find it. She rifled his clothes, checked in his boots: nothing. Where was his weapon?

  She cast her eyes about looking for the whisperer’s allies. They were all hidden under the cloak of darkness. Or perhaps there weren’t any.

  What the—?

  The whisperer’s fingers pried feebly at Willow’s forearm, but her grip was too tight and his strength was ebbing.

  But no weapons …

  “I’m going to ease the pressure off your neck,” she whispered into his ear. “If you make any noise, I’ll snap it. If you understand, tap my arm twice.”

  Tap … tap. He had grown so weak that she barely felt the second one.

  “Good.” Willow gradually loosened her hold. Her captive’s breaths wheezed in and out.

  When he had been breathing long enough that she was sure he wouldn’t pass out, she said, “How many others are with you?”

  He started to speak, but seemed unable to get the words out through his constricted throat. Willow considered a moment, and then eased the pressure a little more.

  “Nobody,” he rasped, his voice choked and scratchy.

  “Then who were you whispering to?”

  “N-nobody. I was …”

  “What?” she said.

  “I was singing.”

  Singing?

  She spun him around and brought his face close to hers. A boy! And those pointed ears: an elven boy at that!

  The boy’s hands went to his throat, rubbing at the soreness. Willow felt a pang of regret.

  “If you were singing,” she said, “why were you whispering it?”

  The boy looked up at her, his eyes now catching some of the moonlight, but said nothing.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “Ber-Ote.”

  “Ber-Ote, do you live around here?”

  Ber-Ote said nothing, continued rubbing his throat.

  “Answer me,” she said, shaking him. “Don’t imagine that I’ll spare you just because you’re a child. I repeat: do you live around here?”

  Ber-Ote hesitated, and then nodded.

  “How many Kards are there? How many humans?”

  The boy didn’t understand. As best as Willow could guess in the darkness, he was probably no more than ten or eleven.

  “Take me there,” she said.

  “Please, no,” Ber-Ote said.

  “Why not?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Why not?” said Willow.

  The boy shook his head again.

  She was about to threaten him with terrible things, but another glance at Ber-Ote’s face stopped her. Looking at those sad, dark eyes of his, she knew he had already known many terrible things.

  “I’m sorry,” Willow said, and released the boy.

  He sprung from her grip and fled. She watched him until he ran out of sight, and then crawled about looking for Tamlevar’s rapier and a branch suitable for use as a crutch or cane. Her hands were raw, and she felt blood trickling from them to mix with the dirt.

  She found several thick branches, each having its own merits and disadvantages. She settled for one that had a knob conveniently located where her hand met the wood. She was able to grasp the knob for better support and less strain on her hand. The wound in her shoulder ached fiercely, but that was just one more pain to contend with.

  She could not find her sword and gave up after a while. She began the slow limp in the direction in which the boy had run.

  Chapter 26

  So strange to be limping through the woods of her youth. They were at once hauntingly familiar and unutterably foreign, like a feverish dreamscape. The cool evening scent of grass and earth teased her nostrils, promising to reveal the joys of her long-forgotten childhood. The feeling tugged at her heart; it was as though she remembered this place in every way except with her memory.

  Her body had taken too much punishment over the last few days. She didn’t know how much further she could push herself. The cane helped, but her sword arm was nearly useless from the wound from Lieutenant Erenble’s rapier and the gash sustained during her fall from the tunnel.

  She needed a healer. If she didn’t find one soon, she’d be of no use to the Prince, or to anyone else for that matter. She needed shelter, too. Her limbs had gooseflesh running up and down them, and her grip on her cane was numb from the cold.

  Worse, the fuzziness of her mind came and went. A little while ago (how long?) she had come to her senses and found herself seated by a babbling creek. It seemed likely that she had sat beside it intending to wash her wounds and drink, and had just drifted off. She couldn’t remember finding the creek in the first place, let alone having sat beside it. When she had cupped her hands and drank of the frigid water, she remembered having tasted it before.

  Discipline. She kept moving.

  The trees parted to either side as she struggled through the forest. Had she veered from the direction Ber-Ote had headed? She couldn’t tell. There wasn’t much she could do with that ringing in her ears, that constant whining as though a mosquito were trapped in her skull.

  She shook her head and nearly lost her balance. Her stomach churned nastily, but she quelled the rebellion.

  This was bad. She was going to be very ill indeed.

  Faster. She had to walk faster. While she still could.

  Ahead, she saw a light peeking through the trees. The Kards? Or elves? She supposed it didn’t matter at this point.

  She staggered from tree to tree, clinging to the rough bark of one for a few moments before launching at the next. Progress was painfully slow, but it was all she could manage. The woods seemed to ebb and flow like waves on a beach.

  Was that light moving towards her? Yes, so it seemed.

  For a moment, she considered hiding, but to what purpose? Her only hope came from the source of that light. She hefted the weight of her cane. If the owner of the light was a foe, she’d be sure to leave her mark on him before he slew her.

  Willow discerned the figure of a man approaching. She squinted, trying to make out his face.

  She gasped. She mistepped, tripped over a root, and fell to the ground. Her body hurt so much now that it was hard to make out the individual aches. It had all blended together into a single massive affliction.

  She looked up again. There was no mistake. It was her father who walked through the woods towards her, a radiant orange glow about him.

  Willow brought a hand to her mouth.

  “Father!” she cried.

  Her father glanced her way and smiled, his unlined face flowing like the cool water of a mountain spring. It seemed as though his silver hair danced in the light that surrounded him, and about him were fireflies or sparks or motes of
energy.

  All her fatigue drained from her when she saw that smile. She took a deep breath, and it was as though her lungs had been given new capacity. She had almost forgotten that smile, the one that said: don’t give up. I have faith in you.

  Don’t give up, her father said.

  “I won’t, father. I won’t give up. I’ll never give up.”

  He was only a few steps away from her, and now he extended his arms to her for an embrace. Then she smiled, too, and sobs welled up within her and she reached out, longing to touch her father after all these years.

  She slid into his arms and cried. The warmth of his body was an elixir to her.

  “Father,” she kept saying. “Father, I’m sorry. I failed you.”

  It’s all right, Waeh-Loh, he said. I love you.

  “I’m not your father,” said another voice.

  “I love you, too,” Willow said. “Please forgive me.”

  Don’t give up, her father said. Don’t ever give up. Be disciplined and strong for us all.

  “I don’t understand,” said the other voice. “What do you mean?”

  “What?” said Willow. Her head was spinning.

  “Who are you talking to?” The voice was naggingly familiar. She released her father, staggered back a step to look at him.

  It was Ber-Ote. But then, where was—?

  “I don’t …” she said. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you’re sick,” Ber-Ote said. “I’m going to take you to my mother. She’ll help you.”

  “Where? Where?” Willow spun around, looking for her father. She fell to the ground.

  Ber-Ote was tugging at her sleeve, trying to pull her to her feet. In his other hand, a torch blazed.

  “Get up,” he whispered. “I can’t carry you. We can’t stay here. The overseers will find us.”

  “Overseers?” The word had no meaning.

  Ber-Ote pulled at her. She climbed to her feet.