A Play of Shadow (52 page)

“Bannan! Wisp!”

“Jenn!”

Heart’s Blood. She lay facedown over the edge of a stone-rimmed fountain, struggling! Bannan broke into a run . . .

Even as the toad hopped as quickly as it could and the yling flew from his hair and up, spear raised . . .

As Scourge plunged by him, joined by two other kruar out of nowhere, their crests intact and glittering like swords. The three roared and snarled as one . . .

Hair like flame, ylings dropped from above, converging on the fountain . . .

All to be tossed aside by the dragon.

Who got there first.

~MINE THE DEATH!~ Wisp roared as he hurled himself at what dared attack the girl, permitting nothing to get in his way.

Were those CHAINS?

He crashed sidelong into the fountain, jaws snapping at the metal. It gave, as did most of the bones in one leg and wing, the turn-borns’ cursed creation being nothing like honest stone. Heedless, he pushed Jenn back and away, only then to feel the bindings of a net.

For something weaker. For something younger and foolish. For something that wasn’t a lord among dragons!

Wisp sent breezes to rip the netting to shreds, snarling in fury. With his good wing, he spiraled up a bodylength, then two.

Then turned midair to plummet down at the eyes.

Instinct tried to stop him, warn him, make him flinch. The fountain was floored by the turn-borns’ making and impenetrable. He couldn’t pass through it.

Her enemy was there!

~DEATH!~ Wisp roared, oblivious to fear.

D
EAFENED BY THE
dragon’s roar, Jenn scrambled back to the fountain. Wisp was overhead now; somehow he turned, and she knew, to the core of her being, he was going after the eyes.

She couldn’t stop him, not in time.

She gripped the stone, laced with turn-born magic, and wished.
LET HIM PASS!

Denial . . . denial . . .
the fountain was old, reworked, the voice of its magic distant, almost bored. Yet strong. Too strong.

A moth landed near her hand, or did she only think of a moth? Did she only imagine blue around her and the peace of that room?

Did she feel as large as a mountain? Or was she a speck . . .

Whatever Jenn imagined, just as Wisp, claws outstretched and jaws agape, hit the water of the fountain, with all her heart she
wanted
him safe.

Her hands sank through dust as the stone crumbled away.

The wind of the dragon’s passing knocked her backward, but she saw Wisp go into the ground as if it were sky.

She’d done it.

Bannan caught Jenn in his arms as she staggered back, as the fountain collapsed, and the dragon, maddened and magnificent, drove himself into the earth with a roar like thunder. For moments afterward, he held her steady, or she, him. It didn’t matter which, so long as they were together and holding, nor did it matter where.

What had she done? The fountain was the turn-borns’, twin to the one in his farmyard, yet Jenn had destroyed it with a touch.

How—? That he’d seen for himself. Felt as well. The moth’s writing had
writhed
on his neck, coming alive as Jenn Nalynn, for the briefest of moments, somehow became larger than the meadow.

Perhaps the world.

Ancestors Simple and Sane. He could fear such power. Likely should. Except that it filled the woman he loved and trusted with all his heart, so Bannan gave her a squeeze and chuckled. “You couldn’t wait till I refilled the flasks?”

Jenn lifted her face to him. Though her eyes were huge and purpled with magic, she’d the beginnings of an adorable frown. “You’re worried about—?”

Bannan interrupted with a kiss he’d meant to be light, but became hungry and nigh on fierce. She responded in kind, for they’d come too close to losing one another and this was but the beginning of their journey, and he felt as though he drowned in glory—

~There is water, truthseer, elder sister.~

They broke apart, gasping and giddy, to stare at the little cousin at their feet. Jenn’s toad, Bannan thought, his heart pounding, best learn when not to comment or he’d stuff him in his pack again.

“Bannan, look!”

He followed her pointing finger in time to watch the fountain unfold like a flower where it had been, as it had been.

Water sparkled, reflecting the sky.

~Old fool.~ Scourge dipped his muzzle in the fountain, blowing bubbles. Not done, he stepped into it. Water lapped to his knees, no higher.

“I can’t find him,” Jenn said hopelessly.

“Wisp won’t give up this chase,” Bannan replied, thinking he knew what she meant.

“Him.” She held up her slender left arm, encased in a dark metal band. Three links of chain hung from it and she caught those in her free hand to silence their rattle.

Ancestors Defiled and Disgraced! Such rage flooded him at the sight of the thing, Bannan knew himself as capable as the dragon of tearing out Crumlin’s heart.

If not of eating it.

“Let me see,” he said, or tried to say. Jenn nodded, standing still while he examined every part of it once, then again, searching in vain for a release mechanism or weakness. In his own world, he’d have guessed it iron, cold forged. Crude work or careless. The surface bore the marks as if shaped by a hammer, but fit her arm like a second skin.

Bannan stroked the back of her hand. “I see no way to remove it.” Other than by whatever magic had bound her. Heart’s Blood. If the dragon killed Crumlin, would the cursed band be fixed in place or disappear? He could come to loath all things magic.

Except that the greatest he knew regarded him tenderly, and gave a brave little shrug. “It doesn’t hurt. But what of this?” Her fingers took firm hold of his chin, turning it to see the full extent of the bloody gash that ran from above his ear to near his lips.

He’d almost forgotten. “I learned where dragons come from,” he quipped. “I’m fine, Dearest Heart. Scratches, that’s all.”

“Ancestors Witness. These are not ‘scratches!’”

Nothing would do after that but a thorough examination, which he might have enjoyed under other circumstances. Once she discovered the bites on his arms, Jenn pushed him to sit by the fountain and eased the pack from his shoulders before helping to remove his shirt.

What was left of his shirt, and that a bloody mess. “It looks worse than it is,” the truthseer insisted. “They were very small dragons.” He decided not to tell her of their fate.

“With sharp teeth.” Jenn bent to tear a clean strip from her dress, itself rent in a few places. One of those provided a distracting view of round soft flesh and, catching his look, she gave the bodice an irritated tug. “It can be mended. I hope.”

“We’ll look a pretty pair in Channen,” Bannan said lightly, but it was a problem. He’d one more shirt, but Jenn’s sack looked too small for a second dress. Not that fashions from Marrowdell would match the latest Naalish trends, but walking any city street in a torn garment would attract the wrong sort of attention.

Jenn dipped the strip in the water, though not without a shudder, and began cleaning his wounds, starting with one on his upper back he’d not noticed. “I’ve a shawl,” she mused. “What about your boots?”

He stuck a toe through a hole, then pulled off what were, in truth, more the memory of good boots than usable footwear, tossing them aside. “At least we’ve found our guides.”

The pair of kruar stood at a distance from Scourge, crests erect in continued alarm. Or respect. From what Bannan had seen of their kind, these were smaller than most, similar in size to Perrkin. There the resemblance to anything so safe as a horse ended.

Save for the saddles on their backs. Mistress Sand’s “guides” in truth though, from the looks on their long faces, they didn’t think much of that duty.

The truthseer couldn’t blame them. Scourge’s unhindered presence likely didn’t help. He wore naught by a harness of scars, given to him by his own kind when they’d ripped the armor from his body, the leader’s penance for having lost the war. That he’d survived that torture, to battle in another world and return, had only elevated Scourge among kruar.

Whose attention presently flitted between the old kruar and—more often now—him.

Oh, and didn’t he know why? His wounds were minor but many and, no doubt thanks to the dragonlings, continued to ooze red. “Can you stop the bleeding?” Bannan asked very quietly, even as nostrils flared to catch more scent and Scourge rumbled a warning deep in his chest.

Jenn’s eyes widened in understanding, then narrowed. “I can stop them.”

“While a comfort, Dearest Heart, believe me, them we need.”

~Worry not, truthseer, elder sister,~ the toad assured them pleasantly. ~All will be mended.~

“
All?”
Something stung Bannan in the back, then pulled. “Ouch!” He craned his head around to see, but Jenn was there first.

She smiled and settled back on the stone. “Hold still.”

Another sting. Another!
“Hold still?”

A yling appeared too near his face, needles in its—her—hands. She patted his gashed cheek, then began to stitch.

Gentler stitches than Tir’s, if it came to it. Bannan held still as the creatures worked, quickly discovering that as each wound was sewn shut its pain vanished too. Could have used that skill after a patrol, when they sat to trade stitching favors.

On those who could be stitched.

Ancestors Doubtful and Dumbfounded, how many more escapes before the Verge claimed them?

And where was the dragon?

At first, watching the ylings sewing Bannan’s flesh back together had made Jenn queasy, though she’d seen Covie do the same for her father after an accident with his chisel. That wound had healed, leaving a long scar.

She felt better when she noticed where the ylings passed needle and thread, Bannan’s skin might have never been cut, save for the few smears of blood. The seamstresses worked with blinding speed, pausing only to pat him every so often.

Comfort, Jenn guessed. Though perhaps to be sure he stayed still.

To do her part, she gathered up the remains of his bloody shirt, thinking to bury them. Ylings swooped down to take the mess from her hands, then flew high into the plumes and disappeared.

Well. That solved a problem. “Thank you,” Jenn said, trying not to notice how the kruars’ noses, including Scourge’s, lifted to follow the blood scent.

“Your turn to hold still.” Bannan smiled and dropped his gaze to her bodice.

That again? Jenn looked down to find two ylings hard at work. Their needles flickered like darts of light and their hair, this close, sparkled from tip to base. In hardly more time than she’d have taken to thread a needle, they were done and flew away.

There was no seam. The fabric, like Bannan’s skin, appeared never to have been torn. “I thought Frann had tidy stitching,” she commented, adding the ’Dear and Departed to herself.

Bannan flexed his arm. “I’ve no complaints. How do we thank them?”

Jenn dipped a finger in the fountain, bringing it to her lips as she would at home, and considered the matter. “Little cousin?”

The house toad sat against the fountain, its skin matched in hue to the stone. ~Yes, elder sister?~

“The ylings. Could you thank them for us?”

The toad blinked slowly. ~I could, if you ask it, elder sister, but they would not understand your gratitude. I fear they might take it as insult.~

“I heard that,” Bannan said, reminding her of that helpful difference within the Verge. He went to run his fingers through his hair, then stopped with a wry grin. “Is there anything we could do for them?”

The toad crouched, as if wary of their response. ~Kill the Lost One.~

The eyes, that meant. Certainly it had been her dragon’s intention. Jenn looked worriedly at Bannan. “Shouldn’t Wisp be back by now?”

The truthseer shook his head. “There’s no telling the sort of chase that thing could lead him on. He won’t give up.”

No, she thought, he wouldn’t. For all his posturing, her dragon cared deeply about the small denizens of Marrowdell; the more, perhaps, because he hadn’t always. The Lost One would regret making Wisp his enemy.

The metal around her arm felt suddenly heavier. Jenn laid it on her thigh. “The eyes—he said he wanted to be my friend,” she said bitterly. “I shouldn’t have listened.”

“Did you see him? More than those cursed eyes.”

Something in Bannan’s voice had Jenn searching his face. “Have you?”

“We’d an encounter,” he admitted, his tone grim. “Only the voice.”

That horrible voice. “I saw nothing more.” But she had, hadn’t she? In the snow. In Marrowdell. Jenn stood and went to her sack, digging out the bundle of socks. She brought it back with her, facing man and toad. “Whoever he is, whatever, doesn’t belong in the Verge.” Cautious of its sharpness, she pulled the shard from its hiding place. The black was gone.