The Dark Throne (34 page)

“Good to know,” I said. I expected to feel surprised, that the healer in charge of the wounded had a reputation for deadliness with a spear, but little about the Sidhe surprised me anymore. I settled the strap of the satchel over my shoulder, untangling it from the strap of the Sword; and then I looked at Calliea and said, “Okay. Where do we start?”

For the next hours, I focused solely on helping Calliea tend to the wounded. It was soothing, in a way, to push all thought of the future from my mind, to collect my consciousness and concentration in the simple yet profound tasks of healing: changing blood-soaked bandages, checking the set of broken limbs with delicate probing fingers, washing gore from bruised flesh. I didn’t count how many wounded we tended, but it was enough that I would have lost track if I’d tried; the Sword remained silent, for which I was strangely grateful. The Caedbranr’s words in my head would have drawn me back into thoughts of looming battle. I preferred the simplicity of both physical and mental exertion. It left little room for musing on war, though I was dealing with the aftermath of a battle in the broken bones and torn limbs of the Sidhe warriors.

I didn’t know how much time had really passed, only that my supplies in my satchel were about half gone. It was a few moments before I registered Vell’s presence, and even then it was only because Beryk ghosted up to me, watching me with solemn golden eyes as I bandaged a deep gash on a Valkyrie’s arm. The Valkyrie was one of those who’d been knocked from the air by a sweep of the dragon’s spiny tail, with the gash on his arm the least of his injuries. A cloth soaked in a potent sedative wrapped his other arm—the arm was the only part of his body not stitched together or bruised or broken. I could tell by sight that the cloth was still damp; when the sedative needed to be reapplied, I’d have to wear gloves so it didn’t soak into my own skin. I watched the Valkyrie’s face for a moment, wondering if he dreamed, or merely lay wrapped in featureless darkness. Beryk raised his head and joined me in gazing down at the still warrior.

“Hey, fur-face,” I said softly. I reached up and moved the orb of light to the Valkyrie’s feet, near the aisle. With a twist of my wrist, I dimmed the light, glanced down at the Valkyrie to make sure we could still see the rise and fall of his chest, and stepped back into the center aisle, wiping my hands with a cloth that I kept tucked into my belt. When I turned to move to the next pallet, I caught sight of Maeve, deep in conversation with Vell. The golden circlet glimmered against Vell’s dark hair, catching even the muted light of the healing tent with its brilliance. I tilted my head, thinking that perhaps it was just my eyes, tired from concentrating for the past hours; but no matter how I blinked, the radiance hovering about Vell remained. The High Queen created her own light. It shimmered about her as she moved, a softly glowing aura that whispered of incredible power. I squinted down at Beryk.

“You see that she’s glowing too, right? And not metaphorically.” I looked at the sable wolf for a long moment, trying to discern any difference about him, but Beryk was as always just Beryk—though, I thought, he’d been
different
from the first moment I’d encountered him, drenched under the river-tree. Beryk huffed out a breath that may or may not have been a response to my question, gliding past me down the center aisle. I followed him, wiping my hands again. Calliea straightened from where she was stitching a wound, gave me a brief nod and bent again over her work.

As I approached the head healer and the High Queen, Beryk slid past the pair, disappearing into the rest of the tent. One of Maeve’s silver eyebrows arched fractionally, but that was all the surprise—or perhaps disapproval—she showed at a wolf walking among the wounded. I waited a respectful distance from the two, and I felt the Caedbranr’s power awaken, circling lazily in my chest. Being near Vell or her Three seemed to rouse the Sword.

I waited and watched. From the way that Calliea had spoken about her, I gathered that Maeve was a respected elder, but the Sidhe didn’t show age as mortals do. Physically, Maeve looked only a little older than Gray or even Calliea; somehow I knew that her hair had always been silver, like Rowan the White, the captain of Titania’s Outer Guard. But there was an air of experience and authority about the slender healer. She spoke to Vell without the awestruck wonder of the younger Sidhe.

After a few moments, the High Queen gave a regal nod to Maeve, who replied with an elegant half bow. A new pair of healers appeared at the entrance to the ward, and Maeve turned to Calliea. The wordless communication didn’t surprise me, but it took a moment for my mind to translate after hours of concentration. Calliea wiped her hands and touched my elbow as she slid past.

“We’ve been relieved,” she said to me. Then she touched two fingers to her forehead, her obeisance directed toward Vell. “My queen.”

“My Laedrek,” replied Vell with a half-smile. The use of her
vyldgard
name brought an answering smile to Calliea’s lips. “How are the wounded?” Vell asked, her eyes roaming the ward.

“I expect Maeve will have told you,” Calliea said, a little frown marring her smooth forehead.

“I am not asking Maeve. I am asking the Laedrek.” Vell brought her gaze back to Calliea, a quiet intensity behind her words. “You must understand. You are not one of my Three, but as foremost among my First Score, I expect you and the Arrisyn to be my eyes and ears as my Three cannot be. I demand your honesty.”

Calliea bowed her head briefly. “Yes, my queen.” She raised her eyes to meet Vell’s piercing stare. “There are many gravely wounded. Half the Valkyrie’s number lie in this ward, with at least six close to the boundary between life and death. It will be many days until all these fighters will be ready to travel, much less ride to battle.”

Vell nodded, the light glimmering on her crown. “And there are enough healers, and enough supplies?”

“Yes, my queen.” Calliea offered Vell her satchel. “Each healer carries one of these for their shift, and they are refilled by the apprentices and those who are not gifted with healing skills.”

“You mean those who have never bothered to learn.” Vell raised one eyebrow slightly. She took Calliea’s satchel and rifled through the depleted contents, then returned it and nodded. “I trust you will keep me updated on your Valkyrie.”

Calliea raised her chin. “I will.”

Vell turned to me. “Lady Bearer, we need to speak. Your shift is over, is it not?”

I looked at Calliea, who nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. Then we shall walk.”

Slipping the strap of the satchel over my head, I followed Vell, rolling my shoulders to ease the stiffness in my muscles. I deposited the satchel on the table by the entrance, where a young Seelie with a bandage on his brow promptly scooped it up. When he raised his eyes after slinging the straps of the empty satchels over his shoulder, he gave a start, his eyes widening slightly into an expression of awe as he recognized the High Queen and the Bearer of the Iron Sword. My tiredness dissipated; I caught the young Seelie’s eye and gave him a wink and a grin. His mouth fell open just slightly and then we swept through the curtains.

“Feeling cheeky today, are we?” Vell murmured to me over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows.

I shrugged. “Maybe I just want to remind everyone that I’m not so different from them.”

“Except for the fact that you were mortal once, and now you bear the most powerful weapon this side of the veil,” said Vell. We passed through the main entrance of the tent, emerging into the wintry light of the Deadlands.

“Well, yes,” I admitted. “Except for that.” I blinked as I took in the three additional tents now erected around the huge stone ring where the embers of the great fire lay banked and smoldering. “Everyone’s been busy this morning.”

“One tent wouldn’t hold all the warriors in this world,” replied Vell reasonably.

“It seemed like a pretty big tent,” I said.

“A bit of workings in the warp and weft, nothing more.” Vell flicked her wrist. She led me to the smallest tent of the three, set a small distance apart from the others. Though it was plain gray on the outside, we entered a simple yet well-appointed interior. The walls of the tent were deep scarlet, reminding me of the war paint that had adorned the faces of Vell’s Three; a white bear pelt covered the ground beneath a rough-hewn waist high table, which was covered in maps. Long scarlet curtains hid what I surmised to be sleeping quarters; several compartments lined the far side of the tent, and the center curtains were drawn back. I glimpsed Vell’s armor, neatly laid on a low table, and a precisely rolled pallet atop the spotted skin of a snow-cat.

Merrick bent over the map-table, his young face tense with concentration, passing one hand over the black mirror-like surface of his scrying-stone. He didn’t look up at our approach, twisting his fingers in the air above the scrying-stone as the surface suddenly writhed with color and movement. Vell joined Merrick at the table, leaning slightly over the map, her eyes intent on the surface of the scrying-stone. The navigator adjusted the scrying-stone once more, and then gave a small sound of triumph. Vell leaned closer; I slid over to her side and gazed down at Merrick’s instrument.

“Found ‘em,” said Merrick in a slightly smug voice, the strain of keeping the scrying-stone focused weighting his words. His hair curled against his forehead, damp with sweat.

“I knew you would,” Vell murmured.

As I looked into the lens of the scrying-stone, I saw, as if from the eyes of a bird, a great host moving across a gray landscape. Banners snapped in the wind, and hooves churned the ground into dust. I leaned forward, my heart tightening in my chest—for an instant I thought it was the Unseelie host, armored in their dark colors with banners flying. But it was not the Dark Queen’s court. Beneath the lens of the scrying-stone, Malravenar’s army blackened the hills, a seething mass of gray and black and sickly green, the colors of decay and death, nightmares made corporeal. The tattered, stained banners bore the sigils of the
ulfdrengr
halls that the Darkness had overrun, and at the forefront I spied a blood-smeared long banner of white, worked with gold—a trophy from the Saemhradall. On other poles beneath the banners, the armored host held aloft skulls. My stomach heaved, and I pushed myself back from the table, taking deep breaths.

Vell studied the scrying-stone intently, her face hard with anger. Merrick turned the complex dials of the scrying-stone at her quiet request. His hands began to shake, even as he slid the scrying-stone over the map toward Malravenar’s stronghold.

“Show me all you can, Arrisyn,” Vell said in a steely voice, noticing his trembling.

Merrick didn’t reply, simply nodding as he took in a deep breath, sweat standing out on his forehead now. The Sword hummed a low, warning tone. I stepped over to Merrick’s other side.

Gray and Finnead strode into the tent silently, apparently summoned by Vell. They joined her wordlessly, watching the scene in the scrying-glass as it flew over countless hills, all teeming with Malravenar’s horrific creations. Merrick slid the scrying-stone across the map, his breath coming in ragged gasps now. I tensed. I understood that Vell needed to know as much information as possible about our enemy, but I didn’t remember this high of a cost to Merrick when he’d used his instruments to navigate across Faeortalam. Then a suspicion emerged into the full light of my conscious thought, and I said softly but warningly to Vell, “Are you sure that nothing can come
through
the scrying—”

A strangled cry escaped Merrick’s lips as black smoke boiled from the surface of the scrying-stone, whirling into a column of darkness and fire. I tackled Merrick, breaking his contact with the scrying-stone; where my skin touched his, I felt a flash of frost, as though skeletal frozen fingers wrapped about my arms. He convulsed beneath me and I rolled to my knees, my hand reaching for the hilt of the Sword. Hot wind screamed through the tent, shaking the ground beneath our feet, flames lashing out from the writhing core of dark smoke. A black tentacle emerged from the seething mass, wrapping about Merrick’s leg and dragging the unconscious navigator toward the table.

“You will not take him!” I screamed, my voice lost in the roar of the blistering wind. I drew the Sword. Its power flared, hotter and brighter than I’d ever felt it, surging down my war-markings, filling me until I felt my skin splitting. The Caedbranr’s bare blade shone as bright as a star in my fist, and I brought it down on the tentacle of darkness, severing it. The whirling column of smoke wavered, a shrill note entering its screaming winds. Shouts from outside the tent blended into the cacophony of the creature’s maelstrom.

I felt Vell’s power burst like a supernova, a cold wind suddenly springing up to tame the heat of the dark-thing’s flames; the Caedbranr pulsed with emerald fire that met Vell’s bright blaze, enveloping the whirling column of darkness. The creature—for it was a creature of some sort, though it didn’t have a corporeal body that I could see—lashed out at us. I felt the hot sting of a cut as a tentacle swept across my left arm, its dark matter as sharp as a blade. The feel of blood sliding down my arm kindled an indignant rage within me, and I added my own
taebramh
to the bright pulse of the Sword. With a snarl, I lunged forward and plunged the Caedbranr through the writhing pillar of black smoke. My vision exploded with white-hot light and an invisible force slammed into me, driving me to the ground.

I gasped through the sudden pain in my chest, but the Sword sent a little surge of power through its hilt into my palm. The tender skin of my newly healed scars stung, a sharp bright pain that drew me back from the brink of blackness. I blinked and dragged in a breath, wincing at the agony slicing through my ribs; but I looked about the tent, saw that the Dark-thing had disappeared. As hearing returned over the ringing in my ears, I heard Vell snapping out orders and the bustle of movement as her warriors obeyed. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, still struggling to see clearly through the wavering shadows. With a flick of her wrist, Vell sent an orb of light aloft, throwing the scene into stark relief.