From Darkness Won Part 24

The old man's eyes misted. "Poril heard he killed a cham."

"Yes, he's very brave, Master Poril. But Lord Nathak means to force Lady Averella to marry Esek."

Surely not! She suspected Lord Nathak of vile things, but that he would kidnap her and force her to marry...

Poril sneered. "Poril never did like the master's son. Pompous brat. Criticized Poril's pastries and pies, he did."

"Please help us. Help Achan. Keep silent about what you've seen. Let us take Lady Averella back to Achan. I'll make sure he knows you played a part in her rescue."

Poril's thin lips stretched into a smile. "Yeh'll tell the boy Poril helped?"

"The moment I see him. I promise you."

He patted Gren's shoulder. "Yeh have Poril's silence, yeh do. Poril's a fair man, he is, and owes much to the boy."

"Thank you, Master Poril. You are indeed good and fair. I must go." Gren walked casually toward the gatehouse.

Poril returned to the cart and climbed up on the driver's bench. The driver was still a.s.sisting Noam with the horses.

Averella floated after Gren. She caught up with her in the outer bailey. Gren was now walking with the beefy man, who pushed the cart past a barn and around dozens of cottages with thatched roofs. He stopped before one such cottage and lifted Averella into his arms. Gren opened the front door, and they went inside.

Averella floated through the wall in time to see the man carry her body through a doorway in the back of the cottage. Averella shadowed Gren into a bedroom. The man stood beside a wide bed where Averella's body now lay.

Gren stopped in the doorway. "Is she... dead?"

"No. She breathes. We should fetch a doctor but-"

"Harnu, we can't!"

The pockmarked man turned his brown eyes to Gren. "But that would be unwise, I was going to say. We shouldn't even keep her in the stronghold. Once they learn she's gone, it won't take 'em long to search every cottage in the manor."

Gren swallowed. "What can we do?"

"Get her out of Sitna before they come looking."

"Should we put her back in the cart?"

"Let's wait for Noam. If Lord Nathak and his men depart as scheduled, we'll be able to leave without anyone suspecting us."

Averella waited in the cottage with Gren and Harnu for what seemed like hours before Noam arrived.

"They've left," Noam said, a wide grin plastered across his narrow face. "We've done it!"

Gren grinned and embraced Noam.

Harnu stared at Gren and Noam like a jealous lover. "My father has a cottage in the Sideros Forest. We could keep her there 'til she wakes. Then we can journey south."

Gren stared at Harnu. "You're going to help me?"

He nodded. "You can't stay here. Word will spread that you've returned. And when they discover Lady Averella's body is gone, they'll question you."

Gren squealed. "Thank you, Harnu. Thank you both."

"Why do you and Lady Averella need to go to Armonguard?" Noam asked.

Averella waited for Gren's answer, for she could not imagine why she would travel alone with a peasant woman, especially such a great distance.

"Our reasons are our own," Gren said. "Lady Averella's things are out here." She ducked out the door, but her voice carried into the bedroom. "How will we get the horses?"

"I'll take them out to exercise them," Noam said, following her. "No one will question that."

"Until Oster realizes they're gone," Gren said.

"I'll tell him the guests departed," Noam said.

Averella drifted back into the main room.

Gren wrung her hands together. "So much is left to chance."

"It's left to Cetheria," Harnu said, stepping out of the bedroom. "She's n.o.ble and just. She'll protect us."

Averella wrinkled her nose. Cetheria?

A bird cawed, drawing Averella's attention away from the discussion. The eerily familiar sound plucked a string in her heart. She stuck her head through the wall of the cottage and glanced around for the source.

A black bird perched on the edge of the cart that Harnu had carried Averella's body in. It cawed again, revealing rows of sharp teeth in a bat-like head. A gowzal. Averella could only stare, knowing she had never seen such a creature outside of paintings and tapestries.

Yet certain she had.

13.

Achan squeezed his hands into fists, overwhelmed with frustration. All day he had tried and failed to contact Sparrow. He looked to Sir Eagan, who sat across from him, the only other occupant of the wagon beside Matthias, who lay sleeping in a pile of blankets at Achan's feet.

"How can Sparrow close her mind?" Achan asked, unable to mask the tinge of desperation in his voice. "If she lost her memory, how can she bloodvoice at all?"

Sir Eagan's pensive eyes met Achan's. "She would not lose her abilities and has likely closed her mind instinctively. I suspect something frightened her."

The whole situation frightened Achan. But he needed to be strong to bring Sparrow back from the Veil.

Then back into his life.

The wagon traveled over a b.u.mp on the road, and he put a hand down to steady himself. This wagon was as fine as any room in Granton Castle. The interior was walled in colorful tapestries. Two couches upholstered in red silk filled the front and back walls. A narrow table stretched down the long wall facing the door, which was covered in a thick linen drape tied shut to keep out dust from the road.

The impending battles nagged at the back of Achan's mind, but he pushed those thoughts aside to focus on Sparrow. "Why can't I see through her eyes?"

"You cannot see through her eyes, because her eyes are in her body." Sir Eagan's calm bled into Achan.

Achan wanted to tell Sir Eagan what to do with his calming tricks, but gave himself over to it. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, clinging to Sir Eagan's peace. When he spoke again, his voice sounded normal. "But isn't her mind in her body?"

"Her brain is in her body, but what you refer to as her mind is really her essence, her spirit and soul. That is in the Veil. And the Veil is where Vrell truly is. She has been pushed from her body before her time."

This was almost too much to fathom. That sweet Sparrow, who had so wanted to end her adventuring, had been forced into another. "If Lord Levy cannot bloodvoice, who could have stormed her?"

"I cannot say."

"How much farther to Sitna?"

Sir Eagan studied his hands. "Tomorrow evening."

"I don't suppose Sir Caleb would approve of my being included in the rescue party."

"I think not, Your Highness. Nor would I."

Achan gritted his teeth. "How did you survive in Ice Island after losing the d.u.c.h.ess? I tried to forget Sparrow, but she shadows me like an old wound. And now this."

"You may try and convince yourself of all the reasons you should forget her, but forgetting is not the answer. You care for her. She matters to you. And it is painful to lose her. But pain, in time, brings strength and wisdom. Arman makes good of all things, if you give Him leave. Do not blame Him for what's happened to Vrell."

"I don't blame Arman. I blame myself. If I hadn't pushed so hard she-"

"If, Your Highness, is a word that will steal your soul. Do not waste your thoughts on ifs. What is done is done. Look to the future."

Achan met Sir Eagan's pale blue eyes. "What future?"

A soft smile spread across Sir Eagan's face. "Despair does not become you, Your Highness. Do not lose sight of the goal."

Achan looked at his lap. "Armonguard."

"Precisely. Focus on Armonguard. Leave the rest to Arman."

From the corner of Achan's eye, he could see the dark maroon fabric tied to his arm. Another shadow that followed him everywhere. "But Caan told me if I submit to Him, He would give me the desires of my heart." He glanced at Sir Eagan. "I thought He meant Sparrow."

Sir Eagan chuckled. "Caan is not a wis.h.i.+ng stone, Your Highness. What you think you desire now is not necessarily the most important thing. Caan has seen places in your heart that no man or woman will ever see. He knows your hopes for next year and thirty years from now. And He does not operate on man's schedule. He will bless you in His time. But not necessarily in the ways you think you want now."

No sense fretting, then. But for Achan, being calm never came naturally.

That night they made camp in a field. The soldiers in Achan's division circled the wagons, creating a sentry wall around the camp with hundreds of tents erected inside.

Achan sat on the bed inside his tent, which was round and held up in the center by a single pole with dozens of spokes jutting out like a wheel. Solid brown on the outside so it would not appear special, the inside walls were covered in thick tapestries depicting vineyards and forests. It reminded him of Esek's tent. The tent where Achan had found Sparrow unconscious and bruised, lying on Esek's bed, dressed in that ridiculous gown. Achan's tent had no hole in the center roof for the smoke of a fire, but it was big enough to hold a large bed on one side of the pole and a round table, three chairs, and all his new trunks on the other.

Esek's tent. Just what had Esek been planning for Sparrow if Achan had not gotten there in time?

A darker idea crossed his mind. What if Esek had already done something vile to Sparrow before Achan had arrived? Esek had struck her, but Achan had not thought to inquire as to anything else. He hung his head. No wonder Sparrow had left. What woman would want a man who forgot to ask of her well-being after she had been kidnapped by a maniac? What woman would want a man who thought of taking her as a mistress along with his wife?

He was an insensitive fool.

A fool who would marry Lady Averella. Achan hoped to find her as agreeable as her mother, for that would be good fortune indeed. Perhaps Sir Eagan was right about the desires of his heart. Perhaps in time Lady Averella would become just that.

Achan walked to the entrance of his tent and lifted the flap.

Shung and Kurtz stood under a square valance that covered the entrance. They turned toward him.

"I feel like a bird in a cage," Achan said.

"Come out then, Pacey," Kurtz said, "so long as you don't mind two extra shadows trailing after you, eh?"

Achan mumbled, "I suspect I'll have extra shadows trailing me for the rest of my life."

"Is that so bad?" Kurtz threw an arm around Achan's shoulders. "Some of the men are reveling, they are. Shall we join them?"

The weight of Kurtz's arm on Achan's shoulder shocked his cham wounds. "I don't feel like reveling. There is much on my mind."

"And reveling will help you forget it for a few hours. What could be better, eh? Come on."

Kurtz led Achan around a large double pole pavilion, past a series of triangular tents, around a round tent with a domelike roof, and past three tents that looked like tiny cabins. All were dark, solid colors-maroon, navy, emerald, brown-not striped or bright like the tents Achan had seen at the tournament in Sitna. Armonguard flags flapped in the wind atop each tent they pa.s.sed. The image reminded Achan of his new s.h.i.+eld. His inheritance. His future.

What would it bring? If they succeeded, if he lived, what kind of legacy might he leave? Could he truly be responsible, steadfast, reverent, and brave at all times? Could anyone? He stumbled over a guy line anchoring a green tent.

Kurtz gripped his arm to steady him. "Easy, there, Pacey."

The raised voices of dozens of men, a lute, and laughter drifted on the cool night breeze. As did the smell of something meaty. They skirted the edge of a bronze tent and entered a clearing.

A tide of negative emotions crashed into Achan. Something he would have to get used to, he supposed. Men sat on the ground in circles, stood in clumps, a few danced by a bonfire. One sat on a barrel, playing the lute. Several faces turned toward him, though most the men chattered on. The scene took him back to the night Esek had demanded he fetch a jug of water and Silvo Hamartano had attacked him.

A length of glossy black hair drew his gaze to the bonfire where the men were dancing. He squinted, looking closer. "There are women here?"

"Aye, from Berland. They train women soldiers there. Berland women are more brawn than I like, eh, Pacey? But if you want to meet them-"

"Lady Gali has come then?" Achan asked Shung.

Shung nodded. "Aye. She travels with Sir Koyukuk's army."

"And how did Lady Gali find Sir Shung Noatak when you saw her?"

Shung's grin filled his face. "She found honor in Shung's new t.i.tle."

Achan slapped Shung's back. "As well she should." But would her father find enough honor to give up his youngest daughter?

"You hungry, Pacey?" Kurtz asked. "I can get you some stew, I can. Sir Gavin won't allow us anything but watered down wine whilst we're on the verge of battle." Kurtz leaned close. "Though I've a bit of my own I could share if you need a nip, eh?"

Achan's gaze locked with Toros Ianjo. The priest sat with a soldier on the back of one of the wagons that edged the perimeter. Achan started to cross toward Toros, but a soldier bowed before him and held out a steaming drumstick.

"Like something to eat, Your Highness? We've also got stew, if you'd rather."