Captivity (25 page)

There was no more time to indulge in emotion.
Dominic looked from me to Val. “Jana?” he asked. He knew before I
told him, was on his feet, his sword drawn, before I could speak or
even think the word, “Reynaldo.”

While Dominic had mourned me, a whole platoon
of the short, thickset men had climbed out of their tunnel into my
cell. “One of you guard ‘Gravina Aranyi,” Dominic said, not looking
back to see his words obeyed as he dashed up the stairs to rescue
his daughter. “The rest, follow me.” The men stared at each other
in consternation. They were here for glory and booty, not to stay
in some filthy cell with an unconscious woman and child.

Bickering in their strange language, they
picked up straws from the pallet. The loser with the short one gave
a bitter laugh, resigning himself to a profitless day, and settled
in beside me on the floor. “Lucky for you my lady it is,” he said,
making conversation, “that your husband wealth us promised, or else
that worked glass in your hair mine would be.” He was not really
threatening; he knew Dominic’s power too well. It was his form of
pleasantry, and he carried out his unwelcome commission
faithfully.

I studied my reluctant friend through
newly-opened eyes that saw clearly in the cell’s gloom. Like the
others, he was short and thick. The tallest of them was little
taller than me, and I am small even for a woman. Yet any one of
them would make three of me around, all muscle and bone, not fat. I
could whisper now. “Miners?” I asked.

The man nodded confirmation. “Your lord
husband,” he said, “well he speaks.” He smiled, remembering
Dominic’s powers of persuasion. “Great reward to us he offered if
the way below ground to the castle find we could.”

The blacksmiths and metalworkers are also
miners, controlling every stage of production, from ore to forged
steel. If Dominic had decided that tunneling into the castle was
the surest way of effecting a rescue, they were a logical choice
for guides. But they had been the ‘Graven’s, and Dominic’s, enemies
just six years ago, during a failed rebellion, manipulated by the
ringleaders into allowing the misuse of a dangerous telepathic
weapon in their safekeeping. Miners are not warriors, and Dominic’s
troops had mowed them down like unarmed civilians, despite their
heavy hammers and pickaxes. My husband had told me about it,
embarrassed at the gruesome ease of the massacre, shaking his head
and admitting that the fear of the weapon’s power had made him
press on long after he would have stopped such slaughter in an
ordinary battle.

I looked fearfully at the man. They have no
crypta
that I can sense, but my thoughts would be easy for
him to guess. “Your lord,” he told me with a smirk, “greatly you he
loves. Land to us he pledged. Bandits to kill, border to guard. For
what six years ago he did, Aranyi-holding for settlement he
offers.”

Dominic had offered them the northern border
slice of sparsely inhabited Aranyi land, the man explained, to
provide a buffer zone against bandits or other incursions. The
common enemy had made an uneasy peace between Aranyi and the
ironworkers; the cost to us in property was as nothing compared to
the rescue and the future safety it would bring.

My guard was prepared to chatter on all day.
His singsong voice, turned-around sentences chasing their tails in
my head, faded to background noise. The sound of battle took its
place.

I was running, racing through the great hall, my
sword in my hand, my eyes measuring the distance to where I should
shout. No, not I. Dominic. I had maintained communion with him from
when he held me and sang. His touch has always bound us, one to the
other, mind to mind, as the scars of our marriage brands bind us in
law.

For the rest of the battle, I lived it
through Dominic’s mind, as if I were there—as I was, in his
perceptions. Never before or since have I experienced such a thing,
and I would not wish to again. But I am glad, having read so much
of battles, mythical and historical, Terran and Eclipsian, to have
seen, briefly and on a small scale, what it is like. Dominic was
the perfect window into this foreign world, for he thinks as he
fights, judging situations and making decisions with almost
mathematical clarity, so that later, when I was me again, the
memories only at secondhand, I could yet understand what I– we– he–
had done.

As Dominic reached the top of the stairs, the
bandits were braced to inflict a real defeat on the Aranyi forces,
which were about to break down the wooden doors. Our men would
burst through, thinking the battle all but won, to be met with a
hail of arrows shot at close range, and a follow-up of swordsmen to
slice through the survivors. Timed perfectly, it could be as
devastating as Reynaldo’s original plan.

Dominic took in the whole problem as he ran,
covering the distance to the rear ranks of his enemies quickly. His
new allies, the miners, followed after a slight lag, Dominic’s long
legs and light frame allowing him to move at a speed they could not
match.

Run and shout, I– Dominic– we– thought, to
get their attention. Make the archers turn around, that is the
important thing, but don’t become a target. Always taller than
other men, the alien blood that shines through the eyes, that made
the bones grow long and light. Slouch a little, reaching the rear
rows of the swordsman bandits, but shout– “
Aranyi!
Aranyi!”

Dominic’s battle cry booms out of his chest
and nose simultaneously, a deep rumble with a reedy overtone like
monks chanting several octaves apart, a choir of men in one body.
The trumpet shall sound
, I sang to myself as the
vocalization diffused in my resurrecting flesh like the flowering
of orgasm. Surely the bandits would lay down their weapons at such
an ultimatum. I had this one last solitary thought before communion
subsumed my individuality. Nobody would oppose the last trumpet
with violence. But Dominic knew, as I would learn, the bandits had
not my ear for music.

“
Aranyi!”
Dominic shouts again.
They’ll hear that all right, will turn to face it in the fear
reflex. Won’t have to stab the swordsmen from behind like a hired
assassin. Not that it matters. This is war, for all our small
numbers, not a duel of honor. Must make a dent in the back rows, so
the archers will turn from the door. Several pivot as I
approach.

Think to Niall.
Beloved, not yet. Don’t
burst in to a face full of arrows, beloved. Wait until I tell
you.

Hear the answer, always slightly ironic, even
in this desperate moment:
Not a minute too early, my love, thank
you. The boards are splintering.
Much too sophisticated for
nineteen. He will be a dangerous man in a few years. Like me. Too
much like me. He will not stay long with me and mine.

The ram stops its work. Now let my blade find
its true place, the neck, the arm. The sword will find it, not
through any magic, as some claim, or crypta, but because I have
trained and worked so that it comes naturally. One, two, three—now
the sword has tasted four of them, now they know me.

There is a heaving and twisting in the ranks
of the bandits. The men in the rear, armed with the usual swords
and knives, turn to fight me and my allies. The bandits in the
front, holding armed bows at the soon to be rammed door, are
standing indecisive between the expected assault on the door and
the new, real, attack behind. Men push against each other in panic,
either to fight the surprise attack or to flee.

The killing red rises in my eyes. The sword
makes a humming sound as it whirls through the air. The dagger I
hold close at my side. There are dead and wounded around me, no
more dare approach. Take the chance to scan the ranks and the
surroundings in a full circle. Still none behind me, only the scum
in front, twisting this way and that, unsure whether to continue to
guard the door or join the fight back here.

The miners and the smiths are really
fighting, not just shouting and waving their weapons. They’re new
to organized combat, but enthusiastic, more like butchers than
swordsmen. Their short, brutal blades hack at the enemy, working
like cleavers, chopping off a hand or disemboweling. I have taught
them something after all in two days, or maybe it’s the promise of
virgin land that may hold iron ore. For whatever reason, they’re
proving their worth. That’s one gamble that paid off.

The archers have turned at last, throwing
down their bows and drawing their swords. Can’t shoot over the
heads of their own men and expect to hit us. Too many on their own
side fallen to wait for the besiegers. It’s all hand-to-hand
now.

Think to Niall again:
Now, beloved, now
we’re ready for you
.

The ram thuds against the door again, once,
twice. They’re in. Niall has remembered everything. All of our men,
in helmet band or collar, are wearing the purple flower, the
mountain iris that grows abundantly on Aranyi land. Can’t afford to
wonder if the man next to you is a bandit in a stolen uniform.

The guards who were shamed, who let them take
Amalie, are in the front, at their own request. Better to fall in
the first assault than live with that dishonor forever weighing
heavy on the soul. Although what they could have done, outnumbered
as they were… Still, it’s what we’re taught, what makes us
soldiers.

You did well, beloved.
How young he
looks, and tired. His eyes meet mine over the heads of the enemy.
He’s tall, almost as tall as me, a perfect match.
Beloved
companion. We will meet in the middle.

Niall shouts a blood-curdling, ululating
battle cry, a Galloway highland paean, and seems to hang in the air
as he leaps into action, twirling his rapier. An archer, stunned by
the sound, freezes for a fatal moment and doubles over as Niall
stabs him through the guts, withdraws the blade, kicks the body
aside and parries the attack of a bandit swordsman.

A bit of a showoff, my companion, smiling
like a god in the warrior’s trance. Cocky. Looks good and knows it.
But he earned it this time, the abuse he had to swallow from that
shithead. When we find him, Niall must have a share in the
vengeance. I must not let Reynaldo go to his death before giving
Niall his turn at revenge.

A bandit, a brave man, staggers toward me out
of the melee, arm raised holding a– what? An Ormonde sword. Not the
stolen uniform, but the weapon, good ‘Graven steel, grip inlaid
with silver. Stefan had one like this. Has it still of course.
Parry his thrusts with the dagger. They’re not ‘Graven, they fight
with their right hand. Cut the tendon in the arm. He drops the
sword. Run him through the chest, no armor, not even leather like
mine. Poor sods, their leader led them straight to hell.

Scoop up the good sword, toss it behind me to
collect later, kick at the hand reaching up at me with a knife.
This one’s half dead already, scared witless of the miners. Never
thought I’d look like the safer alternative in a battle. The dagger
will do for him, in the throat, bloody but quick.

Must find that shithead Reynaldo before some
overzealous man goes too far. Can’t feel his presence.

“Reynaldo!” Dominic shouts in an eerie echo
of Jana’s threats of last night. “Where are you? I owe you three
deaths.”

This time I heard a voice, as from a separate
body, instead of living it in communion. Someone was speaking to
me. Me, Amalie, back in my cell. My guard had asked me a question.
He was looking at Val, still nestled in his
crypta
-death in
the crook of my arm. “Your baby, like you wake up he will?” he
asked again. When I assured him he would, the man became visibly
happier.

I used the interruption, pointing to the
empty water skin, asking the man whether he had any he could share.
The man made a clucking sound when he focused on my deprivations.
He gave me sips of warm stale water from the flask at his waist,
and brought out his own field rations, coarse gritty bread and a
kind of spicy preserved meat which had to be cut in thick slabs
with his knife, and urged me to eat my fill.

The typhus was flaring up again as my
circulation improved. I had been too long with nothing to begin
again with such heavy food. I thanked him and tried to explain, but
the man’s face faded in and out as fever overtook me. I felt Val
beginning to wake from the
crypta
-death, his first stirrings
of thought popping up almost in the same way as the miners had come
from underground, and I wrapped my son tightly in my arms so he
would not be afraid when he opened his eyes. With delirium and
weakness returning, I retreated again to semi-consciousness and
communion with my husband.

“Alive!” Dominic shouts, his voice ringing
harsh yet still melodious and resonant over the din of combat. “I
want the bandit leader alive!”

The shit had dared to touch Amalie, to put
his perverted mind into hers. And Jana—he would keep her? He must
desire pain more than any man I ever met. But then, I know him,
don’t I? Intimately, like a member of my family. Find him first,
then we’ll see. They all say they don’t want the pain, but they
lie, they beg for it soon enough.

Shout again, looking for him, easy to
identify by face or hair or mind. “Reynaldo! I am here to pay
ransom in your own coin.” No answer. Not here. Must continue to
fight until it’s safe to search.

Not much longer now. The enemy is caught
between us, between me and Niall. They’re all dead or wounded. The
heat of fresh blood, the moans of the dying, the stink of spilled
guts. Here’s Niall. Give him a kiss and the touch of a hand.
“Beloved, well met in the midst of our enemies.”

“Margrave,” he greets me, returns the kiss
warmly, the hint of a bow in the way he inclines his head. “At your
service.”