Cast In Fury (44 page)

This was important, somehow. One more night, Kaylin thought. It wasn’t her thought, but it took her a moment to realize where it had come from: Nightshade. Bleeding but unperturbed, he raised his sword, shifting his stance. He held it two-handed, standing his ground. And it was
his
ground; she could almost feel the link between them, fief and Lord.

“Marai,” Kaylin said, the word a quiet act of desperation.

The Leontine—and she was that—turned. “My only living kin are my sister and my son,” she said. “But my sister has her Pridlea.”

“I will not let them kill Sarabe. I will not let them harm our son.” She emphasized the possessive. “But, Marai…understand that I cannot let you harm him, either.”

Orogrim growled, tensed to leap.

Marai met him in mid-air. She had not taken the Shadows back; she was smaller, her fur paler, the reds silvered by moonlight so they were almost invisible. “Tell me,” she shouted to Kaylin. “Tell me my story.
Tell me, Eldest.
”

Kaylin started to speak, and fire rained down upon her. It should have killed her. It didn’t. Instead, it passed to either side of her, like rushing water against a standing stone.

Nightshade was there, as if he were Severn.

She held out her arms, as if in plea, and saw Orogrim’s claws pierce Marai’s shoulder. Marai snarled and staggered back, and her form shifted, and the words around her began to swirl again. But they were different, now. Kaylin could see them clearly: as clearly as she had Sanabalis’s words what seemed like months ago.

“Give them choice,”
Kaylin said. Her throat hurt. It was like speaking in Dragon, which she had done only once, and only to the dead.

“Give them thought and will and volition. Give them dreams and the ability to see beyond the next meal, the need for shelter. Give them hope, and light, and a span of days greater than the span they now have.

“Give them—” She faltered. Orogrim’s claws raked across Marai’s chest, and blood flew in a black, beaded fan. “No, Marai—”

But Marai snarled, growling, the wounds closing as she struggled. The Barrani were thrown back by the wind of Dragon wings, and Tiamaris charged, roaring, into the side of Makuron the Black. The larger Dragon snapped his neck to the side, his jaws grazing Tiamaris’s flank. Scales
snapped.

And Marai grew darker, again, and her face lost the Leontine shape that Kaylin knew in her heart she loved best of all mortal faces. The Pridlea’s face. The mother’s.

“Kaylin,”
Marai said, her voice lower, deeper.

Kaylin swallowed. She couldn’t move; Dragon breath had melted stone.

But she could speak.

“Give them song, and story, give them fire. Grace them, in all things with the choice to do and be.” Gods, her throat hurt. Her eyes hurt. Her arms, her legs, her back—it was like the chorus of a very badly sung song.

Marai struggled, returning claw for claw, bite for bite. Hers was now the shorter reach, and she had a lot fewer teeth. But she was shining now. The moonlight alone did not illuminate her—something else did; something brought the red fur to light, and gave it the semblance of…flame.

“I choose,” Marai said, and her voice was exactly the voice of the Leontine woman who had given birth, almost alone, to a single cub. “I
can
choose. Orogrim—the Shadows offer power, and we have taken power. But what have we given?” Her mouth was black with blood. His mouth, red with it.

“We chose
life,
” he snarled. And then, maddened, said, “I chose life. You—you have chosen to throw life away.”

“This isn’t life,” Marai replied. “But she is the mother of my son. She was there. I will not let you kill her.”

“You will not stop
me,
” Makuron roared. And rose. Tiamaris lifted wings, and Kaylin saw, by the way one trailed ground, that flight would be denied him.

“Kaylin,” Nightshade said. She could hear his voice so clearly she thought he must be speaking in the silence of her very crowded thoughts. But she saw his lips move. And she saw the Dragon rise. She thought the whole city must be able to see him; he eclipsed the very moons.

And she stood, watching him rise, until the Shadows called her back. The story was unfinished, and she knew that she would see it through to its end; its end was written, somewhere, on her body; had been a part of her for all of her adult life.

“Give them the peace of death, when age descends. Give them the freedom of death. Let them leave these lands when life is burden and not joy. Let none of us stand in their way, who know no such peace.”

And she understood, for just a moment, why the Old Ones had chosen to fashion life from things already living. Just a moment.
We all want things for our children that we could not or did not have. And we try, and we’re not perfect, and we can’t always get it right. But when we fail, what do we do?

She spoke a single word. It wasn’t Elantran. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t even think of it as Elantran, although the rest had seemed very like it to her.

No names. No words to bind them. No words to give them life. No eternity. A life beyond words, outside of them.

We keep trying. We love, and we try not to fail again in the same way. We find other ways to fail. But we
have
to keep trying.

She saw Marai in the moonlight. She saw Marai begin to speak, and the words that bound her, the words that gave her power, faltered. It would kill her. And, Kaylin saw, in a brief flash, Marai would let it.

“No!” Her own voice. Her own thin voice. “No! Marai! Marai, you have Roshan!”

“My choice,” the Leontine said, and for the first time, the only time, she was entirely calm and free of fear or need. “You will let me make it, Eldest. You will not take it from me. You will tell my son—
our
son—this story, when he is old enough to understand it. You will tell him that he was loved. You will tell him that love, in the end, is not an excuse. You will tell him that what I want for him is what you want. He will choose. And he will face the consequences of that choice, as I face them. You will tell him that I pray to the ancestors that he makes a different choice and faces happier consequences.” And she reached out with Leontine hands, and those hands brushed Orogrim’s unrecognizable features, as if they could discern what lay beneath them.

Orogrim tore her chest apart with his claws. And then he lifted his face and stared directly at Kaylin, who stood too shocked to move.

Severn was there in an instant. Severn, blade drawn, bleeding. He would face Dragons for her, she knew. And the Shadows. And memories.

Orogrim leaped and Makuron descended, and two blades rose: Severn’s and Nightshade’s. One devoured flame. The other impaled shadow. But this time,
this
time, the Shadows were solid. One misshapen arm lay on the ground, shuddering into stillness at the force of the blow; the rest of the arm was still attached.

Wordless, Orogrim looked at the long stump, and then, eyes rounding, he looked at Kaylin. He looked at Marai’s body. He looked at Severn, and he moved then, but he was slower, now. He was not recognizably Leontine; that much, he retained.

And it was a kindness, in its way.

As much of a kindness as angry gods allowed.

“They did not love
us,
” he roared, and one-armed, hampered, he turned to Severn. He could still fight; he could
not
fight and ignore the weapons and the blows aimed at him.

“No, Orogrim,” Kaylin said, uncertain that he would even hear. He had just killed Marai. “They feared you, and love can’t exist when there’s that much fear.”

His long, long claws caught the rotating chain of Severn’s weapon, but the momentum of that chain pulled him off his feet. He rolled along the ground, clumsier, tried to put a hand out, and misjudged; he had no hand on that arm.

“But Marai loved you, Orogrim.”

And Marai, child of shadows, had graced him—with death. Kaylin looked away as Severn closed, hating Orogrim and pitying him, and wondering if the face of death and danger was always tinged by this pathos.

Never wondering if she could have killed him, had she been Severn. She watched, bore witness to his furious struggles. His blood was dark, but crimson where it splashed stone; it sizzled where it splattered against molten rock.

Severn leaped, and landed; his blade was dark and wet and it didn’t reflect moonlight—or any light, really. She saw it strike, fall, saw at last the misshapen head roll away from its shoulders. Saw Severn fall to one knee. She started to move toward him, and stopped. The ground that she stood on was a small patch of solid rock, and to her front and sides, what had once been dirt or rock was now orange and glowing.

She heard Tiamaris roar, and she saw Makuron, haloed now by moonlight, as he roared his fury and his rage. Wordless, animal, very like Orogrim, he plummeted from the sky that was, for a moment, his fief, his empire.

Nightshade was there. Nightshade, the fief. Nightshade, the man. She thought she felt the ground rise just in front of her feet, before she was borne back by the glancing blow of a single talon.

Her arm broke beneath her and she lost the ability to breathe. But she felt the force of the Outcaste’s ancient name, and she struggled against it, the sharp pain of bones fading into a throb.

He said,
I will kill you.

She might have nodded. She was exhausted, and even if her ribs hadn’t been broken—and she knew they were—she wouldn’t have had the strength to stand or flee.

Standing to fight didn’t even occur to her as a possibility. But she could see moonlight glinting off Tiamaris, could see him move, see the stretch of his long, beautiful neck. She could even see the fire that suddenly blossomed around him, and could hear, in the timbre of his answering roar, pain. The fire began to fade to a haze of light and around her, against that haze, the shapes of the Barrani faded into shadow. She closed her eyes, then; it was too much work to keep them open.

Makuron said, again,
I will kill you.

Yes. But not now. If I could, Dragon Lord, I would tell you your story.

And she felt just a glimmer of something that might one day become fear.
What are you?

Kaylin…Kaylin Neya.

And then he was gone. Or she was.

She woke to the crowded yet austere room that served the Hawks as an infirmary. Bandages, scissors and small jars with open lids littered the counter, and she grimaced as she caught sight of the flecked wings of the infirmary’s chief doctor. Those wings were folded, which was generally considered a good sign—but Kaylin had known Moran for far too many years to pay them much attention.

Moran had—Kaylin would have bet money on it—eyes in the back of her head. “You’re finally awake.” It was almost an accusation. “If you try to sit up, you won’t be.”

Kaylin grimaced. “Broken ribs?”

“And a broken arm. It was a clean break. Some lacerations, bruises and gashes. Blood loss, but not enough to slow you down. Note that I am not asking you what you were doing,” she added, “because I’m tired of hearing excuses.”

Kaylin let her head fall back on her pillow. “Why am I not home?”

“Think about what you just heard.” Moran ran a hand through her hair, and Kaylin saw her eyes. They were dark, and sunken.

“Moran, how long was I out?”

“Long enough,” was the brisk reply. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“None.”

Moran nodded. “There are a list of people who wish to speak with you. It is, oddly enough, only slightly longer than the list of people I’ve recently been forced to offend.”

“Moran, it’s important—how long have I been out?”

“Long enough,” she replied. “You heal quickly. How does your skin feel?”

“My skin? Fine. Except for the bits under the wad of bandages. Why?”

“When you were brought here, every single tattoo on your body—and, yes, I know that’s not the right word—was incandescent blue, and very hot to the touch.”

“Oh.”

“Consultation with Records, however, shows that they’re more or less the same.”

“More or less?”

“Yes.”

“Tiamaris?”

“Lord Tiamaris was not brought here.”

“But was he—”

“As such, he isn’t my patient and isn’t my problem. Corporal Handred, however, asked me to tell you that Lord Tiamaris will live. I, however, will likely face the prospect of unemployment—and believe me that sounds tempting at the moment—if the Sergeant isn’t allowed to speak with you when you regain consciousness.”

This, Kaylin understood. “And when will that be?”

“When you think you’re ready,” was the steady reply. “Until then, do me the favor of lying still and pretending to rest.”

“Can I at least speak to Severn?”

“Not unless you’re willing to speak to everyone else.” Her expression gentled slightly. “We were worried, Kaylin. All of us. The Quartermaster would like to speak with you,” she added, “but grudgingly gave me permission to say that the loss of the boots and the melting of one dagger would not be docked from your pay.”

“Oh. I must have looked
terrible.
”

“Yes. It would have been slightly more helpful if Severn had brought you in about two hours earlier. The office wasn’t full at that time.”

“I’ll talk to him about his timing.”

“Do that.” Moran shook herself, and then bent over Kaylin and hugged her carefully. “Good work, Private,” she said softly.

Kaylin’s idea of recovery did not include Mallory, and as a result, it was a full two hours before she declared herself awake enough to speak with Severn. The words had hardly left her mouth before the door opened and he walked in.

Moran’s infirmary didn’t include mirrors, and given Severn’s bruised face, and a new line of stitches near the left side of his jaw, this was probably a good thing. On the other hand, she couldn’t see what she looked like, but given that she was the one metaphorically strapped to an infirmary bed—and Moran had real straps, which she wasn’t afraid to use—it was probably just as well.