Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (9 page)

Chapter 5

Control

The wind whipped Ashlyn’s newly-short
hair into her face, and she shook it out of her eyes impatiently, fighting to
stay focused even as her joints protested their ongoing abuse. Her legs were
exhausted and cramping from being clamped against her horse’s sides for so
long, and her arms were aching from straining to keep her father on the saddle
in front of her. He didn’t weigh much, which was both frightening and
fortunate, because Ashlyn was terrified for his weakened state but she knew if
he had been any heavier she wouldn’t have been able to support him.

With some effort, she managed to
shift her grip on the reins, cueing the horse to angle west, away from the
coast. Although the route she’d taken to get here was a straight path back to
Toryn, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk the lack of cover on the beach.
Already, Drake’s horse’s neck was lathered with sweat, his breathing harsh and
labored. She didn’t know how much longer she could force the animal to run.

They leaped over a small log and
galloped into the forest, the moon above blotted out in an instant as they
entered the cover of the trees. Ashlyn racked her brain for the layout of the
island, simultaneously cursing her faulty memory and her own stupidity for not
returning to her homeland more often over the last three years. From what she
could recall, the forest thinned out closer to a small lake, and on the other
side of the lake were The Barrens, where her mother was buried. From there it
was an easy enough trek to Toryn.

The gelding faltered, a slight
stumble, a skip in the rhythmic run, and that was the only warning that Ashlyn
had before the poor creature went down. Suddenly Ashlyn was tumbling forward,
head over heels because she hadn’t had time to prepare herself for it, and she
felt the crunchy leaves jump up to bite into her shoulders as she rolled. She
came to an unceremonious stop against the trunk of a tree, hard enough to hurt
but not enough to injure, and lay there for a moment, trying to catch her
breath.

“Dad!” She bolted upright,
belatedly remembering that she hadn’t been alone in the saddle.

Her father was lying face-down a
few feet away. Ashlyn crawled to him and gently pulled at his shoulder, turning
him over. He was still unconscious, and far too frail and light, his cheeks
sunken, his normally tanned skin pale and drawn. One arm was bent at an odd
angle below the elbow, obviously broken.

“Oh Dad,” she muttered, tears
springing to her eyes. She hastily untied her belt and looked around. There was
a stick close by that was a bit too thin and long, but would still work for
now. She snapped it over her knee to make it a more suitable size, then gently
picked up her dad’s arm, straightening it very slowly. She prodded the skin
with her fingers, feeling the bone within. It seemed like a clean break, but
she didn’t want to try setting it herself. Instead she placed the stick against
the arm and wrapped her leather belt around both the arm and the stick as many
times as she could, tying a knot to secure the makeshift splint. At least she
could prevent it from being injured any further until they got back to Toryn.

Lord Li’s breathing was steady
but light. Ashlyn looked over at where Drake’s horse lay, its sides heaving.
She couldn’t force the animal to move, and they’d already run so far. She bit
her lip, wondering if anyone had followed them. No one had confronted them yet,
so maybe she was in the clear. What should she do?

The plan was, if they got
separated, to meet up back in the city, but that would be a difficult trek to
make without a horse. Maybe if she waited a bit, the horse would recover enough
to take them back, even if it was just at a walk. If not…Ashlyn supposed she
could probably drag her father, although she’d have to construct some kind of stretcher
that she could pull behind her. It would be very slow going.

Right now the most important
thing was to get under some kind of cover. Ashlyn sat quietly, listening to the
sound of running water. She knew she wasn’t close enough to the beach to hear
the ocean, so she was probably close to the lake. Was there a cave behind the
waterfall there? She frowned, trying to remember. It had been so long.

Drake’s horse startled her by
lifting its head at that moment, stretching its upper lip out comically as it
tested the air with its nose. Ashlyn got to her feet, wincing at a slight pain
in her ankle, and walked to the gelding. One foreleg was stretched out in front
of it, and she ran a hand down the coarse hair, noting that the leg was already
swelling, but did not appear to be broken.

She didn’t know if
heal
worked on animals or not, but she
wasn’t very skilled with the magic anyway and it would be very risky to attempt
to heal a patient who couldn’t say what was wrong or where it hurt. Ashlyn sighed,
chewing on her lower lip as she debated what to do. Her father wasn’t very heavy
and the horse could probably handle his weight, even with the injured leg. If
she could somehow manage to get her father on the horse, they could at least
get to the lake and seek out shelter. The issue would be getting her dad on and
then convincing the horse to get up.

She looped her hands under her
dad’s arms, holding at the apex of his arm and shoulder, and grunted as she
tried to drag him towards the horse. The first attempt only moved him a few
inches, and Ashlyn gritted her teeth. She dug in her feet, bent her knees and
hauled as hard as she could. As thin as he was, her dad was still much bigger
than her. “Your bones are heavy, old man,” she groused as they moved along,
inch by painful inch. “I’m never letting you give me a hard time about my weight,
ever.”

Her stomach grumbled loudly when
she finally got her father to the horse, and she realized suddenly that she
hadn’t had anything to eat in more than a day. Well, plenty of time for that
later. With some effort, Ashlyn managed to prop her dad up against the side of
the horse, soothing the animal when it seemed a little bothered by what she was
doing. Eventually she was able to get Lord Li’s leg over the saddle, and from
there she pushed him up so that he was lopsidedly lying on the horse’s back, as
much on the saddle as she could get him. Now it was just a question of getting
the horse up without her dad falling off.

Ashlyn picked up her makeshift
weapon harness where it lay next to a tree, noting that it had torn when she’d
gone flying. She’d have to fix it somehow. Sighing, she picked up the reins off
the ground and moved back to stand beside the horse’s belly.
How is this going to work?
She held the
reins in her left hand and hooked the weapon harness over her right wrist so
she could grab her dad’s leg with that hand. “Okay, mister,” she muttered.
“Time to give me a hand here.” She tugged upward on the reins.

Fortunately, Drake’s gelding was
nothing like the horse that had almost gotten Ashlyn killed in battle less than
an hour before, and the black steed obediently gathered its hooves underneath
it and tried to stand. As Ashlyn expected, the animal rose to its feet unevenly,
and the saddle listed off to one side, but fortunately she was able to grab onto
her dad’s uninjured arm and maintain her hold on his leg to keep him from
falling off. One of the saddle bags came loose and fell to the ground, but she
figured she could come back and get that later.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Ashlyn
whispered, patting the horse’s neck. “And thank you. I promise I’ll give you a
break if you can just get us to the lake, sweetheart. Come on now.” Checking to
make sure that her dad was still resting evenly on the horse’s back, Ashlyn
started off in the direction of the lake, leading with the reins.

It took them several minutes to
complete what should have been a thirty second walk, but Ashlyn wasn’t
complaining when they finally emerged into a clearing with a beautiful,
sparkling lake and a small waterfall. She edged around the lake, trying to
steer clear of the muddy parts so as not to leave tracks, and made her way to
the waterfall.

The horse knew how to ground-tie,
right? It had certainly appeared that way earlier. “Um…stay,” she said
uncertainly to the gelding, dropping the reins and pointing at the ground.
“I’ll be right back.”

The horse lowered its head and
tore up a mouthful of grass, chewing placidly.

“Oh, good. You just stay here and
eat.” Ashlyn hobbled to the edge of the waterfall and stretched out a hand
through the curtain of water, trying to see if there was a crevice behind it.
She felt nothing- just air. She ducked through, holding her hands out in front
of her to stop her if she encountered a wall, but when she emerged on the other
side, she was happy to see a damp cavern stretching back into the mountain. It
was small, much too small and wet for a permanent dwelling place, but big
enough for two people and a horse to hide out for a little while.

Even after satisfying its
appetite for grass, Drake’s horse didn’t want to go through the water, but at
her persistent urging, the gelding finally stuck his head through, and then, as
if he were scared the water might not allow the rest of his body to enter as
well, suddenly took a huge leap and skidded into the cave awkwardly. Ashlyn
yelped and dropped her weapon harness, barely catching her father as he slid
off the horse’s back. She fell back against the cave wall, but managed to stay
upright.

“Okay, Dad…calm down…we made it,”
she said to the still-unconscious Lord Li, grunting as she dragged him to the
back of the cave and laid him down next to the wall. “Now I just have to figure
out what to do next.” She checked his pulse, which was still strong. When he
woke up she’d give him some water to try to replenish his fluids, but of course
sleep would help right now, too.

The horse seemed all right too,
but was favoring his front leg even more after the total overkill of his giant
leap, which just
figured
. Ashlyn
removed the saddle and rubbed down the tired horse with the damp saddle
blanket. She found a sheathed dagger and a pair of gloves in the remaining saddle
bag, and strapped the dagger to her leg, figuring that any additional weapons
she could carry would be helpful right now. There was also a mostly dry blanket
at the bottom of the saddle bag, which she draped over her dad, tucking it
under him as best she could. He was wet from his trip through the waterfall,
and she didn’t want to worry about him getting hypothermia on top of everything
else.

She healed the cut on her hand
that she’d gotten from her shuriken earlier, and put on the gloves. Even damp,
they smelled like Drake.

She didn’t want to think about
Drake. Ashlyn slumped against the wall, one hand against her forehead, and
tried to think about what to do next.

The crashing of the waterfall was
too damn loud.

I
have to go outside and get that saddle bag anyway before someone finds it,
she thought, and glanced over at
her father. He was still sleeping soundly. She’d go out and get the saddle bag
and then come right back. She supposed they could just spend the night here and
leave in the morning- and maybe, just maybe, the horse would be well enough to
carry her father by then.

Ashlyn ducked through the
waterfall again, shivering as the cold water hit her already-chilled skin and
plastered her jagged hair to her neck. She ran a hand over the sopping locks
ruefully as she stepped onto the grass. Skye had cut off a good chunk of it-
not that he could have done anything different, of course, trying to get her
away from Drake. But she could feel the uneven ends and knew it must look
terrible. Some Elder Heir she was. Soaking wet, dirty and hungry, with a
questionable hairstyle, Ashlyn knew she probably resembled a drowned rat more
than the Lady of Toryn at that moment.

She paused several times on her
way towards the saddle bag, smoothing out their tracks so that anyone who
happened upon the lake wouldn’t be able to follow them to the waterfall. With
luck, anyone who came by would just keep on going.

She was pushing leaves back into
place with her boot when she heard the growling, and somehow she knew
immediately that it was Drake. She turned to face him, and saw his eyes in the
darkness, glowing red and closer than expected.

She had time for a single breath
before he charged at her.

Ashlyn spun out of the way,
drawing the knife from the sheath on her thigh and catching Drake’s midsection
as he passed. Instead of moving away from the blade, he turned and grabbed her
arm, letting the dagger cut deeper as he swooped down to bite her forearm.
Ashlyn yanked her hand back and kicked him in the face, then cartwheeled aside,
trying to put some distance between them.

She honestly had no idea what to
do. She had known the
resist
stane
tempered Drake’s bloodlust, but she hadn’t known the extent of his lunacy
without the calming magic. Was it possible to reason with him?

“Drake, it’s me,” she told him,
holding up a hand to show that she didn’t want to hurt him. “It’s Ashlyn. The-
the girl you couldn’t forget, the one like a dying rainbow.” She felt silly
saying it out loud, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

He snarled and swiped at her
half-heartedly with one hand as they circled each other, Drake moving out from
the cover of forest onto the grass next to the lake and Ashlyn following. She
didn’t want to hurt him, but she wasn’t about to let him get near her dad in
this condition.