Lady of Poison (3 page)

Marrec cut off Hemish before he could begin, “There. The pain should fade,” said Marrec.

He helped the man to his feet. Hemish grew somewhat less wild about the eyes but remained quite agitated.

The man finally managed to yell, “Did you see her? My daughter? One of those tree men ran off with Ash!”

Daughter? Apprehension sent goose bumps stippling down Marrec’s arms. Was this missing girl the Child of Light, stolen from him just as he was about to find her?

Hemish made as if to rush outside, but a pain more spiritual than physical seemed to unsteady the man. He began to pitch forward as if in a faint. Marrec reached out a hand to steady him.

“Easy. Rest a moment. We’ll get her back,” promised Marrec, as he righted a chair and helped Hemish to the seat. “Wait here.”

Marrec ducked his head out the door. He located the tattooed soldier who waited outside, who was fending off the thanks of grateful villagers.

“Gunggari—there’s been a kidnapping—a child was taken from Hemish. I think… it might be the child we’re seeking, but I don’t know for certain. I need to speak further with this man. Can you get a bead on the kidnappers, quick?”

The Oslander nodded. Without a word he traced a path of footprints from the door of the home, slinking toward the trees where the volodnis had retreated, stepping quietly but moving with some speed. Experience with his friend’s abilities told Marrec that Gunggari could track most anything, but he would wait for Marrec’s help before launching any sort of counterattack or rescue. Marrec ducked back into the house.

The older man looked into Marrec’s eyes and said, “Thank you. Why are you helping me? I don’t even know you. My name is Hemish.”

“Yes, I know. I’m Marrec, but that’s not important right now. I have a pressing question for you, one I have traveled leagues to ask.” Marrec paused for a breath. “Hemish, have you ever seen or heard of somebody or something called the ‘Child of Light?’”

Thought creased Hemish’s brow. He said, “Well, can’t say that I have. Has it got anything to do with Ash?”

Intuition tickled Marrec, growing stronger. It was exactly the sort of feeling he had learned to trust as subtle guidance from the higher world. Marrec said, “Hemish, I believe that your daughter, Ash, is the Child of Light I seek, the child whom I’ve been seeking these long months.”

Hemish looked at Marrec, nonplussed, and said, “Why? What’s this business with ‘light’ and seeking? Ash hasn’t done anything. She’s normal, if a little slow in the head.”

Marrec laid a hand on the man’s shoulder and replied, “I assure you, I come with no sinister intent, exactly the opposite. The Child of Light is important to the goddess Lurue, also called the Wild Mother and Healing Hand. I am her servant, and on her behalf, I’ve sought the Child of Light. If Ash and the Child of Light are one and the same, this can only be a joyous occasion.”

“Joyous—what are you talking about? She’s been kidnapped, I told you.”

“I’ve never known Gunggari to fail. He’ll find her. Meantime, I ask you, please tell me more of your daughter, Ash.”

Hemish continued to think, looking up at Marrec, then fingering the wound Marrec had healed. It didn’t take him long to reach a decision. More calmly than before, he said, “It doesn’t surprise me that someone has finally come asking about her, actually. She is different, despite what I just said. She is special. I count myself the luckiest man alive that it was I who found her lying so helpless in the trees almost five years now gone past.”

Marrec’s pulse raised in tempo, “She’s not your natural born child?”

“No. She’s a foundling, but just as precious despite that.”

A foundling… Marrec, too, had been raised by those who were not his real parents, he, too, having being found out alone in the elements by kindly people. Could there be some sort of connection? Marrec’s fingers brushed at the scars hidden by his hairline, wondering.

“Does she… does she have a way about her eyes… or something not quite right about her hair?” asked Marrec, with a tentative note in his voice.

“Uhm, no. The strange thing is, she can speak. Well, speak enough to say a single word, even from the day I found her. Ash’ is the word she says, and it’s what I call her. That, and…” Hemish paused, gauging Marrec’s reaction. “That, and her touch is magic. If you’ve taken a hurt or are feeling poorly, Ash’s touch can grant you relief.”

The healer’s hand. Nothing like his own “condition,” then. Marrec sighed. Still, if she was the Child of Light and somehow connected with the Unicorn Queen, her healing touch wasn’t an ability completely unexpected.

“A healer. Truly, a gift from Lurue.”

Hemish said, “She’s my Ash, and she’s been taken by those things. If she’s somehow tied up with you and your god, it’s funny that you show up just now, just as she’s taken away from me. Maybe you drew those creatures here. What if you’re to blame?” His voice cracked from strain and a sudden anger.

Marrec banished thoughts of his own young memories. First things first. The Child of Light was in immediate danger.

“Hemish, I’m going to find her. I’m going to save her from those creatures that took her from you, and I’m going to discover just what her connection is to Lurue and the goddess’ growing silence. Right now, I value her safety above that of all others. You’ll know soon enough if I succeed.”

The unicorn warrior strode from the house. He’d

spent enough time gathering information—more could be learned later when he’d secured the child’s safety. Villagers were still gathered outside, talking about the events of the day. They quieted when Marrec exited Hemish’s home. He waved to them as he quickly moved to the edge of the trees where Gunggari had darted into the woods.

Marrec called back over his shoulder, “I’m going to find Hemish’s girl,” for the benefit of queries he heard in his wake.

Within the shade of the first few trees, Marrec smiled. He found what he’d hoped—a tiny cairn of hastily assembled pebbles. Gunggari had left the marker indicating the direction he’d taken in tracking the blighted volodnis. That was a technique they’d used before. Marrec couldn’t go nearly as quietly as the Oslander, but following markers, he could bring up the rear quickly enough.

Marrec strode confidently into the trees on the trail of Gunggari, fleeing volodnis, and he hoped, the Child of Light. How odd that she should be a foundling, just as Marrec had been.

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Tired and alone, the child waved his arms ineffectually and tried to crawl into the center of the empty road. He didn’t know why he had been abandoned; he was too young to remember much. He ceased crying hours earlier. He was too tired and too hungry to cry. All that was left was dreary persistence.

When Harmon the cobbler found the infant, the child was nearly dead of exposure. Staring up at the newcomer who had intruded on his field of view, the child made a small sound, trying to give voice to his day of loneliness and cold. Only a whimper escaped the infant’s lips.

Harmon was a good man and did the right thing. The cobbler brought the baby boy back into town. Harmon and his wife Celia nursed the young boy back to health

and began to ask around as to the child’s identity, but it was soon clear that no one would claim the lost boy. Apparently, he was an orphan.

Harmon named the boy Marrec and brought the foundling into his family. Already the father of six other children, the cobbler and his wife didn’t make the decision lightly. Marrec was another mouth to feed and another responsibility for Harmon and Celia, but soon enough Marrec came to regard the kind man and his smiling wife as his real parents. Being only a year and a half old, unable to recall his past, where he had come from, or even how he had been abandoned in the wilderness, Marrec made that internal transition automatically.

Marrec grew into a healthy, inquisitive boy. Though raised as a brother, his older siblings always treated him a little differently, keeping him at something of a distance. That was fine with Marrec. He delighted mostly in the arts of sword, spear, and bow, though he also found solace in the wild. Marrec was particularly fond of the deer, the coyotes, and other animals of hill and glen. He kept many pets of that sort as he grew older, though his parents frowned on anything more dangerous than a hare. His adopted brothers and sisters cared more for the arts of commerce, specifically cobbling, except for his stepbrother Emmon. Emmon shared Marrec’s passion for the wild, though he didn’t share Marrec’s facility with swords, staves, and other implements of the warrior. Emmon often accompanied Marrec on his treks out of town into the edges of the badlands. Growing up, Emmon was Marrec’s closest friend.

Once Marrec and Emmon stayed out overnight on a dare. They set out, pockets bulging with hard rolls. Marrec had even thought to bring a waterskin filled from the well. Had the rain stayed away, their short overnight trip would have gone unremembered, but the rain did come that night, and with it a drop in temperature so extreme that the two boys were forced to seek shelter. They found

a small cave, as had a mountain bear who was not eager to share.

The bear swiped Emmon across the shoulder, adding a flow of blood to the rain’s deluge. The attack’s brutality tumbled Marrec back out into the rain with his stepbrother. Emmon lay moaning off to the side, while Marrec lay sprawled not more than a few feet from the cave. His hands scrabbled across the rain-slick forest floor. As the bear emerged from the cave-mouth to finish off the two intruders, one of Marrec’s hands closed about a thick wooden shaft. Knowledge flashed into his head—he knew what he had to do to survive the next two seconds. As the bear lunged, he pulled the broken tree branch up, aiming the pointed end at the descending bear, allowing the other end to remain butted into the earth. The bear plunged onto the shaft, sorely wounding itself.

After it ran off roaring through the rain, Marrec crouched over Emmon. The rain turned his black hair into a sodden mass that drained rivulets of water into Marrec’s face, but his hands were steady as he ripped strips of cloth from his own tunic and bandaged them around Emmon’s shoulder to stem the oozing blood. Marrec’s eyes burned like coals, but at that time he assumed it was pent up frustration…

Marrec saved Emmon, and both survived the punishments given them by their parents for their foolishness. When Marrec reached his sixteenth year, he took a commission with the village militia, such as it was. Though his adopted father would have preferred Marrec enter the family business, he was supportive of his son’s decision. After all, Marrec was something of a natural when it came to the arts of the warrior. Though far less suited, Emmon followed Marrec’s example.

Yhe crash of metal and a gurgling roar startled Marrec from reverie. He hadn’t gone more than a mile since leaving Fullpoint behind. Thrusting aside the forest growth without further regard for stealth, Marrec rushed forward several dozen feet. His dash ended as he broke out of the trees into a shaded glade.

He arrived in time to witness Gunggari slam his warclub into a rot fiend’s head. The blighted creature was one of half a dozen more pustule-ridden forest folk assembled in the glade in various postures, all inimical, though a few lay unmoving near Gunggari. Glad though he was to see his friend, his eyes darted past the Oslander. Standing plain as day was a massive lion-like beast whose skin was so encrusted with fungus that it seemed a shade of green. Marrec estimated that the lion stood six feet tall at the

shoulder. The beast screamed, giving voice to the same shattering roar that Marrec had first heard. It was rooting after something caught in the bole of a large tree.

“By the Circle of Leth, you shall not have her!” called out a female voice.

A woman in warrior’s garb dropped into view from above the dire beast, swinging a leaf-shaped blade. She had been hiding in the tree. Her fall was purposeful; she struck the fungal lion a nasty blow with her blade as she fell past. Her precipitous drop ended in an expert roll that not only cushioned her impact but also put her just out of range of the beast’s first claw swipe. Marrec didn’t know who the woman was, but she already had his respect.

Then he saw the little girl behind the tree. She had to be Hemish’s foundling, Ash.

Marrec bolted forward, trying to skirt the volodnis. Gunggari would be able to deal with them. He hoped. Marrec doubted that the valorous woman would do as well against the savage beast without some help. It was his cue to act.

A bolt of black rot diverted Marrec. One of the rot fiends was tossing around potent magic. The bolt missed, striking an old tree stump. The stump immediately began to rot and molder. Marrec hoped the courageous woman could hold out a few more seconds against the beast. He first had to deal with the blighted forest creature that was versed in sorcery, and not a pleasant sort of sorcery.

He pointed his spear at the one who’d cast the enchantment his way, saying, “Leave, and we’ll let you go without harm.”

The one he pointed to sneered, breaking open a fluid-filled boil on its face as it did so. “It is you who should leave. We require the Horned Aspect. Lest blight take you, deliver her!”

Horned Aspect? He’d worry about that later. Too many names to match up with faces, though he wondered if the

creature referred to Ash. He decided that his job of the moment was to see that the sorcerer ate its words.

Almost of its own accord, Justlance took flight. He knew even as the shaft left his grasp that it would speed true. He had just time enough to see the sorcerer’s filmy eyes widen before another volodni knocked him to his knees with a blow from behind. Where’d that little stinker come from?

He tried to spin around and back, though it was difficult on his knees. His immediate aggressor clutched an iron-headed mace. It grinned. “Too bad you had to kill Molkai,” it said, gesturing to where the sorcerer volodni was pinned to a tree by Justlance. “Now I kill you, easy.”

The mace-wielder had no way of knowing Marrec’s secret, so when the rot fiend’s triumphant charge ended suddenly on the point of Justlance, its look of surprise before it expired was absolutely justified. An instant prior to stopping the charge, Justlance left the quivering body of the nearby volodni sorcerer. His spear could never be parted from its owner for long.