No Quarter (38 page)

Bannon kicked back, catching Anca in the ribs, hurling her away from both ax and gate. The sudden appearance of the dagger told him that Vree was back in control of her own body. Whatever had happened between her and Gyhard before the dead attacked was no longer happening.
Kars kept calling Gyhard "my heart";
maybe he Sang his lost heart right back into his chest
. The thought of Gyhard trapped in an ancient ruin of a body with a crazy old man made him smile as he shoved open the gate.

Gerek's sword whistled down through the slowly widening space, deflecting the ax blow aimed at Bannon's head.

"Chop off her slaughtering arm!" he yelled scrabbling out of the way.

Momentum carried Gerek into the yard, but when it ran out, he stood frozen in horror, surrounded by the walking dead. His sword arm began to shake and the point fell until the tip dimpled the packed earth.

"Gerek!" Seeing only her brother's danger, Magda rushed forward.

*NO! NO! NO!*

Hands clutching her head, she screamed and fell writhing to the ground.

"Maggi!" The edge of his sword chopped through flesh and into bone. Jerking away from clutching hands, he fought to free the blade from a dead thigh.

Karlene Sang as she ran into the holding and that was all that kept her from falling as Magda had.

*NO! NO! NO!*

The voice shrieked denial in her head, trying to drown out the Song.

*NO! NO! NO!*

The pain was so intense she could hardly see, Karlene forced her voice to run up and down an eight-note scale. It was the best shield she could manage, and it wasn't nearly enough. Grabbing Magda's foot, she dragged the girl back out through the gate.

The shrieking stopped.

Wiping at a dribble of blood from a lip she didn't remember biting through, Karlene dropped to her knees and gently lifted Magda's head onto her lap.

When the girl's eyes fluttered open, her heart started beating again. "Are you all right?" It was probably a stupid question, Karlene realized, considering how
she
felt, but it was the only question that came to mind.

Magda blinked and tried to focus on the bard's face. "Her name is Kait."

"Whose name?"

"The girl who kept saying no." Tears spilled over and ran down Magda's cheeks.

"She's just barely hanging on to who she is."

"I'm not surprised." Setting Magda gently on the ground, Karlene got shakily to her feet. Considering the condition Kait's body had been in when she'd found it on the other side of the pass, and how long before that Kars had Sung the girl's kigh back into a parody of life, she was amazed Kait had any sense of self remaining at all. But since she did…

Leaning on the gate, careful not to cross over into the yard, Karlene Sang.

Although she Sang everything she'd found out about the girl after returning with Prince Otavas to the Capital, Kait's kigh stayed just out of reach of her Song.

"She's protecting her father," Magda said, waving a shaky hand at the fighting.

"They all are."

"Her father?"

"Kars. I think if Kars wasn't there, they'd stop fighting." She winced as Gerek parried blows from a maul. "I think."

A living fighter recoils from pain, leaving openings to be exploited; the dead do not. Unable to disengage long enough to run for it, Vree found herself pushed back against one of the buildings, an ax blade cutting patterns in the air inches in front of her face. Instinct flipped her right arm forward, but the dagger that should have dropped into her hand lay somewhere off the coast of the Broken Islands.

"Shit!" She ducked as the ax smashed through the narrow shutter behind her and swore louder as a splinter of wood embedded itself in her cheek.

"Vree! To the right!"

She flung herself sideways as the dead man catapulted toward her. Dropping to one knee under the flailing arms, she caught a glimpse of Bannon running something into his back.

Pinned to the wall by the steel point on the log gaff, Kiril struggled to free himself. He must protect the father. Pressing his palms against the wood, he pushed and, inch by inch moved backward, passing the shaft through his body.

When his arms no longer reached the wall, he dug his heels in and kept moving.

Bannon grabbed Vree's arm and shoved her toward the broken shutter.

"Karlene says Gyhard has to deal with Kars. Kait won't let her into the holding, and it's the only thing that'll stop this lot."

"What?"

"I'll explain later. Just deal with Kars." He ripped off the remains of the shutter and boosted her into the narrow opening. "Hurry up, before Gerek gets his legs chopped off. His Grace doesn't like hurting people."

"But they're dead!"

He flashed her a brilliant and achingly familiar smile. "Tell him."

*NO! NO! NO!*

Reeling backward, Karlene threw everything she had into Kait's Song. It was barely enough to chase the tortured kigh out of her head. Panting, most of her weight on Magda's shoulder, the bard shook her head. "All that seems to do is remind her we're out here."

Squatting by the hearth, a hand resting on the partially burned body of the old woman, Kars rocked back and forth Singing softly to himself, trying to drown out the Song of the demon. It wasn't working. One after another, the demon Songs that had been beaten out of him in his childhood welled up out of memory and built piteous harmonies in his head.

Lips caught between his teeth, his Song faded to a moan. He rocked farther back, beating his head against the fieldstone wall. Beating. Beating. He could still hear the demons.

"Kars, stop it." Breathing shallowly through Vree's mouth, thankful for her nightsight, Gyhard stepped carefully over and around the corpses and broken furniture scattered down the length of the dim room. "Hurting yourself won't drive away the kigh."

"The demons." The protest came out of the old man's mouth in a young man's voice.

"They're not demons, Kars. They're just the kigh."

"I don't want them. Make them go away, Gyhard. Make them go away!"

* You've had this conversation before.*

*A long time ago.* He stepped up onto the hearth and wrapped Vree's arm around the old man's shoulders, forcing his bleeding head away from the wall.

Kars buried his face against Vree's chest. "Hold me until they go away."

Her skin crawling, even though she wasn't exactly in it, Vree stared down at the tangled mat of gray hair. *Do what you have to.*

She could feel Gyhard's grief and his guilt as he took her hand and lifted the old man's chin until their eyes met. "Kars…"

He frowned. "Were you always a girl?"

Gyhard blinked. "What?"

"A girl. You're a girl. You weren't always a girl."

"No, but…"

His smile was everything it had ever been, "I didn't think so." Then the smile disappeared. "Why do you keep leaving me?"

"I never meant…"

"Yes, you did." The rheumy eyes narrowed. "You got on that horse and you rode away."

*Gyhard. Do it!*

Her hands closed around his neck. "I'm sorry."

Ignoring the hold intended to kill him, Kars shook his head. "Sorry isn't enough for what you did." Remembering another life he'd made his own, he filled his lungs with air and shrieked out a Song.

*GYHARD!* She could feel his kigh being dragged from her body. Forcing her consciousness past him into her hands, she changed her grip and twisted the old man's head around in one swift motion, snapping the ancient, brittle neck.

*Gyhard!*

*I'm here.*

She threw herself into him, not sure of what parts of her body were under her control and what were under his and not caring. He needed comfort, so she gave it, finding ways to hold him.

"Gyhard."

It was a name whispered with air pushed out of dead lungs. Meshed as tightly together as was possible and still maintain separate kigh, they looked down at the body. "Help me."

When Vree disappeared into the building, the dead tried to follow, throwing themselves futilely against the door Kars had bolted from the inside.

Forcing herself to think past the moment, Anca slowly backed away. She couldn't remember the kitchen. She couldn't remember exactly what it was for, but she remembered a door from the kitchen to the hall. The father was in the hall.

They had to protect the father. She began moving as quickly as possible toward the back of the building.

"Something tells me there's another way in!" Bannon yanked his borrowed log gaffe out of the wood, ignoring the rancid fluids smeared along its length, and ran after her. Slashing at her ankles, he brought her down. Planting the point in the center of her back, he leaped up into the air and drove it through her into the ground. It hadn't worked the last time, but it was all he could think of to do.

Jumping off the body, already rising moistly onto her hands and knees, he looked around for another target and saw Gerek leaning on his sword being noisily sick. Behind him, sunlight glinted on an ax as it descended. Even as Bannon raced forward, he knew he was going to be too late.

"Gerek!" Magda's scream echoed off the stockade walls.

Gerek straightened…

… started to turn…

Inches away from his shoulder, the ax fell from nerveless fingers and the blow that should have chopped through living flesh from neck to groin, skidded through the heavy muscle across the top of his shoulder on its fall to the ground.

Gerek cried out, clamped his left hand over the wound and swayed where he stood, blood pouring over his chest and arm. He would have fallen had Bannon not grabbed him around the waist and used his own momentum to get him moving toward the gate.

"Lucky we brought a healer with us, Your Grace." He dumped him into Magda's arms and turned once again to the yard. He had to stop the dead from getting to Vree.

Except that the dead had stopped.

They stood, or knelt, perfectly still, their faces blank.

Staggering back under her brother's weight, one hand clamped over the wound, Magda would have fallen had Karlene not lowered them both to the ground.

"Can you Heal him?"

Brows knit together, Magda took a quick look at the bloody gash, then clamped her hand down again, her relief so great it took her a moment to find her voice.

"He doesn't need Healing," she sniffed, trying to sound unconcerned for Gerek's sake, "he needs to be sewn up and bound in clean linen packed with comfrey, but since I don't have a kit with me…" She sent a watery smile in the bard's direction.

"I Healed Gerek while still in the womb. There isn't anything about his body I don't know. Which, I might add, is a
disgusting
amount to know about your brother, in spite of what the girls in the village think." Lower lip trembling, she drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her eyes unfocused as she laid both shaking hands over the wound.

Gerek screamed and nearly threw himself out from under her touch.

An instant later, Magda sagged forward over an indented line of pale pink skin.

Her own heart beating uncomfortably fast, Karlene stroked damp hair back off Magda's face. "Are you all right?"

"I
hate
hurting people," she whimpered.

"It's only one quick pain against months of pain. I think Gerek understands."

"He passed out."

"I hear that often happens."

"I think I'm going to faint."

"Not now," Bannon called softly, in his thickly accented Shkoden. "Trouble comes."

With Kars' limp body cradled in her arms—he was nothing but skin and bones, the bulky robe weighed as much as he did—Vree crossed the yard toward the gate.

The dead faces turned toward her as she passed, but that was the only movement they made. Vaguely aware of a confused wailing that seemed to come from the air around her, she laid the body down and turned to Karlene.

"He's dead." That was obvious to them all. The heads of the living never rested at quite that angle. "But he's still in there."

Chapter Thirteen

"It's been too long," Karlene said, sagging down onto her knees by Kars' body and pushing damp hair back off her forehead. "With the others, I used the Song to show them where they should go, but for Kars…" She sighed and spread her hands.

"It's just not enough."

"We have to do something," Gyhard murmured through Vree's mouth.

"I know." Kars had been responsible for dark and terrible things, but he had suffered as much torment as he'd caused and had been trapped in the darkness far longer than any of his companions. Pity had proven stronger than revulsion and anger both. "Someone has to show him the way."

"You mean that someone has to die?"

Head bowed, exhaustion dragging her shoulders forward, Karlene nodded.

*Vree, I…*

*No.* Her body jerked with the force of her denial. *Not you.*

*I have lived as much past my time as he has.* He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek.

She lowered it again. *I don't care.*

*Vree…*

*Don't leave me.*

He looked down at Kars, at the tortured and undying creature his love had inadvertently created, then he looked into Vree's heart and wondered how many people were given such a second chance.

Leaning on the open gate, arms folded over his chest, Bannon nodded toward the neat line of dead bodies laid out along one side of the yard. "Should've thought before sending them off then," he snorted.

Karlene glared up at him. "They were suffering, and I had no way of knowing!"

He shrugged and she barely resisted the urge to smack him. "Besides, considering that he poisoned their entire family, I doubt any of them would be willing to do him a favor."

"Point," Bannon admitted after a moment's consideration.

"Thank you."

"No one dies," Magda declared from her place by Gerek's side.

Dropping her gaze to the young healer, Karlene gentled her voice. "It's the only way," she insisted softly.

Eyes narrowed into obstinate slits over purple shadows, Magda raised a hand from the rise and fall of Gerek's chest and pulled a curl of hair from the corner of her mouth. "Find another."