The Blight of Muirwood (44 page)

A memory came to her suddenly, unbidden, of the time she had faced the kishion. She was helpless against his skill. He had twisted aside all of her attempts to injure him. It was only after Astrid lay dead that the Medium had commanded her to redeem Muirwood. Blood had been spilled before the power of the Medium was there to save her. Blood spilled. Astrid’s blood.

The thought brushed against her mind.

Blood would redeem the Abbey. That was what was needed. Not her skill in the Medium. Not her devotion to the Aldermaston. It was her blood. Or the Aldermaston’s. A price to be paid for the power to save them all.

Lia cringed from the weight of the thought.

Was it true? Was it her tiredness speaking or was it the Medium? How could she be sure? Ever since her experience in the Bearden Muir with Colvin when she learned about the Medium, it had whispered to her and given her insights and thoughts. It helped her remember the things she learned. The Medium was a close friend to her. Would a friend send her to die?

She swallowed, feeling her heart burn inside of her. Was this what the Medium was asking of her? The thought struck her like lightning. She felt it through her bones. In her mind, the image of Colvin and Ellowyn on a boat crossing a stormy sea. Foam crashed against the hull. She could smell the salt in the air. But just as assuredly as she could see them, she knew that she was not with them. Colvin steadying Ellowyn as the vessel pitched and lunged in the sea. She would not be journeying to Dochte Abbey with them.

The Gift of Seering struck her like a mountain, the irrespressible weight of the Medium confirming her thought. She would not be going to Dahomey with them.

Pain. The thought brought a wrenching pain inside her heart. Being separated from Colvin would be agony. In her mind’s eye, she remembered as the two of them had stacked stones on Jon Hunter’s body. Instead of that, she saw Colvin and Ellowyn standing there, clutching stones, burying her.

No!

Lia nearly sobbed with the thought, the pain that it caused her. Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away. This was the Medium’s will for her? To die as a hunter protecting Colvin and Ellowyn? Was this what the Aldermaston had foreseen? The reason she needed to be trained? The reason he had used her?

Each step was terrible. She was cold, wet, miserable. All of the feelings she had experienced in the Bearden Muir a year before came crashing down. Loneliness, despair. Abandonment. The Medium was abandoning her to die. To save the lives of others. To save…

She wrestled with her thoughts. She struggled against them. How could the Medium expect this of her? She was so young…her life unlived. But had she not, once before, offered her life to save Colvin’s? At the fields of Winterrowd, had she not bargained with the Medium to save him? To take her instead? She remembered the moment. She remembered the Medium being satisfied with her offering. Then its powers had come. The power that saved Demont’s men from falling in battle. Not just Colvin, but all of them.

The power to save them all.

Even though her heart was nearly bursting with pain, she summoned thoughts of Muirwood again. The faces, all of them. Pasqua. Sowe. Bryn. Astrid. Prestwich. The Aldermaston. Even Getman and Reome and Tresa. All of the wretcheds she had grown up with. All of them helpless at the Abbey, surrounded by soldiers bent on destroying their master. They had no one to defend them. No one, but a girl who was feeling sorry for herself.

Lia clenched her jaw. Had Jon realized he was going to die before it happened? Had the Medium prepared him as it was preparing her? How brave he seemed. Or was it better not to know? Not to understand the Medium’s will until it was too late. That was the necessity – to surrender oneself to the Medium’s will. That was the way of invoking its greatest powers. Holding back, even her thoughts, was enough to send it flying away. She did not do that. She turned the information over in her mind. The Leerings that defended the Abbey borders were in the woods beyond the Cider Orchard. They were hidden amidst the oaks. To be protected, one had to be inside the circle of stones.

Determination filled her. She had to get Colvin and Ellowyn inside that protective ring. She did not know how she was going to do it. But she had to. If her blood was required, then she would do it. She would not shrink from it. Something squeezed her heart with pain and she glanced back at Colvin. His face was a mask of fatigue and impatience. He looked furious as he walked. Was he hearing the Medium as well? Or was his anger blotting out the murmur?

Seeing his face in the darkness, his scowl and expression made the pain even more intense. Ellowyn looked exhausted, her eyes nearly shut as she stumbled after, trying and failing to keep up. She remembered his confession in the mountains of Pry-Ree. It was such a relief to have heard it. To die knowing that he loved her. She would set him free at last. Did the Aldermaston of Pry-Ree know? When he read the writing on the orb, tears had come to his eyes. He had looked at her with such sympathy and compassion. He had kissed her forehead. Did he know what she was facing? The choice that would be only hers to make?

Would she die for Colvin? Yes – it did not require thinking or reasoning. If she could save him, she would. He would not let her. Not willingly. No, he was too proud and stubborn for that. He would try and stop her if he knew.

She could not tell him then. Glancing back, she saw the torches were even closer. Soon they would be overrun. How far was Doe Bridge? Somewhere ahead, in the blackness.

“Keep going,” she whispered to Colvin. “They are getting too close.”

He stopped, tugging Ellowyn with him, waking her from the dream-like walk. “We stay together.”

She shook her head. “I am not going to fight them all, Colvin. Just need to scare them a little. Keep going ahead. I will catch up with you.”

His jaw was like a block of stone. He looked frustrated, upset. He shook his head as if to cast away his thoughts. “We will wait for you.”

Lia touched his arm. “You are the Earl of Forshee and she is the last heir of Demont. Your duty is to see her to safety. My duty is to help that. Now do as I say. I will not be gone long.”

His face pinched with doubt. “Do not do anything rash,” he threatened.

Lia watched as he took Ellowyn roughly by the arm and started off into the woods again. Soon they would reach the lake at the river’s bend. Soon. It was nearly midnight. Lia tested the pull of her bow and walked through the woods the way they had come towards the bobbing torchlight. Her mind was cool and focused. All of the training rushed back to her. She found a nice twisted oak to hide behind. She would attack from the side where they would not be expecting her. She would wait until they had passed her and strike from the rear.

Breathing slowly, she waited until the torches became distinguished. Black tunics appeared, the arms of the Queen Dowager emblazoned on them. Dahomeyjan knights. Her heart felt like flint. Twelve men. Six with torches. Dieyre underestimated her. That was a mistake.

They were tired from their long march. They were not paying attention. The lead was not a knight, but a hunter. He scowled and stared at the footprints often, nodding as the trail was clear to his eyes. She watched and waited, silently bringing herself around the trunk of the oak. Slipping an arrow from her hip quiver, she set it in the string. Waiting. The prey is careless. The hunter is patient.

The man stopped, holding up his hand. He found the place where they had stopped. His head lifted up slightly, listening. Lia pulled the string back and let the arrow loose. Before he crumpled to the ground, she had another one out and dropped another one of the torch carriers.

Gasps of alarm. Swords ringing from their scabbards. Another one went down, also carrying a torch.

“Over there! From the trees!”

Lia shot another one, bringing him down with a single shaft. She darted away from the tree and slunk behind another one. They were panicking. Good. Someone grabbed one of the fallen torches and she dropped him too. Moving to the other side of the trunk, she sighted another one and let loose another arrow. He went down without a sound. There were six left.

“No, it came from that way!”

“No, I saw it! Over there! There!”

Lia waited two heartbeats and came around again, sighting another torch carrier. She did not miss. The last man with a torch was wiser than his friends. He dropped it and scampered into the woods. As the torches hit the wet marshgrass, they hissed and smoked and quickly burned out. A final one still was aflame, crackling and hissing. No one tried to fetch it. Lia stared at the dark, seeing several cowering behind trees.

She stepped away from the oak and started off the way she had come. Her heart was heavy for having killed so many. As she walked, she raised her voice and spoke in Dahomeyjan. “If you follow me, you will die too. Go back to your masters.”

For a moment, she wondered if she should go back and shoot the rest. It would be more difficult in the dark. They were afraid. Their hunter was dead. They could run to the shore and cry for help. But she knew she needed to save her strength. The greater battle was still ahead.

* * *

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears. So often we bring into our lives that which would ruin us merely by thinking and fearing it.”

- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

* * *

Doe Bridge was tall, built of stone and bricks and a double arch. One of the arches was round and narrow and a little higher than the other, to guide the overspill of the river through it when the flood season came rather than eating away at the banks of the shore. The other arch was thicker and peaked in the middle and straddled the main body of the river. Scraggly oak trees grew along the thick mossy banks. Despite the recent rains, the secondary run beneath the shorter arch was dry. An outcropping of mossy stone was revealed in the moonlight, where the column of brick and stone met to form the middle of the river and supported it. That junction formed a little bend in the bridge and connected both sides of land. Lia, Colvin, and Ellowyn were grateful for the mossy rock, for it muffled their steps as they crept towards the base of the bridge.

Dahomeyjan knights were posted at each end, their horses tethered. There were easily twenty men, guarding both approaches of the bridge. Lia knew that dawn was coming and they would probably need to fight their way through the Queen Dowager’s army to reach the safety of Muirwood. Getting past the soldiers without a fight was her first choice.

Lia led the way, her bow ready, an arrow nipped in the string. She moved slowly, carefully, trying to reach the shadow of the bridge that their torchlight could not expose. She heard them speaking in Dahomeyjan as she advanced, complaining of the cold and wondering when they would abandon the bridge and join their fellows in the woods surrounding the Abbey.

“We will be warming our hands soon enough,” one of them said. “Over the burning stones of the Abbey. This land is cursed with cold and mist.”

Lia reached the block of stone at the base of the bridge, mid-stream. She could hear the soldiers above her, but no one had heard her approach. Ellowyn, watching the bridge, nearly stumbled off the rock into the water, but Colvin caught her and kept her near him. She trembled and shivered. Lia sighed in relief and listened. There was the loud rumble of horses approaching from the north in the darkness. She motioned for Colvin and Ellowyn to hurry.

Looking down at the black waters, Lia shuddered. How deep was the river? She could not tell. It looked absolutely frigid. The far end was not near enough to jump. She wished that the bridge was not guarded. She was not counting on having to cross two rivers. How would they cross quietly enough? They had to cross directly under the bridge or the knights might see them and then it would all be over. She rubbed her eyes, trying to think.

Colvin dragged Ellowyn up to the hiding place, clutching her hand as she shook, her teeth chattering. The girl was too cold. A dunk in the river might kill her. It was looking like they would need to fight their way across.

“It is Dieyre,” came a muttering voice. “He looks vexed.”

Another chill swept down Lia’s spine but not because of the water or the breeze. How she wanted to reward him with the arrow for his treachery. The sound of advancing horses closed in and the soldiers clustered along the banks. There were probably a dozen riders in all, the mounts panting and snorting. Hooves dashed in the dirt.

Dieyre’s voice was unmistakable. “Any sign of them?”

“Of who, my lord?”

“Of anyone, you idiot. I had men coming down the river this way. They should have reached you by now. No sign of Forshee or the girls?”

“Believe us,” said a tired voice, “If there were women folk wandering about tonight, we would have noticed. Some warm flesh would be appreciated on a such an accursed night as this. Would you agree, my lord? I do not see your prisoner with you. Where is she?”

Lia and Colvin faced each other, their eyes mirroring the same thought. Marciana.

“Safe and quite warm, I assure you. I left her on a fur coverlet with cider and meat. You can pay for
your
pleasures when the work is finished. Some of the lasses at the Abbey are pretty. Stay here until the next watch, then ride hard. I want you at Muirwood by dawn.”