Cursed by Ice (12 page)

“Hmm. I shall have to think on that,” the old woman said with a fatigued cackle. “In the meanwhile I wouldn’t mind a donation of some of those pretty little gems in his hide … in Weysa’s name. The mems of Weysa do a great deal of work with those who are displaced by the ravages of war. Your city will have more than enough of those.”

“Of course,” Sarielle said. “You may have as many as you can carry. He will give them gladly.”

There was a chuff of breath from over the woman’s shoulder and the wrena found herself looking into the adoring eyes of her wyvern. Koro nudged the old woman out of the way in order to gain access to Sarielle. But a nudge from a wyvern was no small thing, and the old woman toppled over.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Sarielle apologized profusely, but the mem waved her off with a chuckle.

“He just longs for you,” she said, understanding. “And I long for my bed.” With that, the old woman shuffled off to find her bedroll.

The next instant Sarielle had a face full of wyvern head. He nudged her and rubbed against her, knocking her backward and trapping her against the ground. She giggled at his affection and hugged and petted his head as best as her small arms and body allowed.

“Yes, my love. I’ve missed you too. And I’m glad you are well also,” she said. As she petted Koro, she looked around the campsite. It was dark, well past dusk, and the moon was high, but there was no sign of Garreth yet again. Where did he go at night? Why did he go? What was it he felt it was necessary to do so far away from the campsite, where he could be set upon by any manner of creatures? Mountains were known to be favored places for manticore dens. Even now she could hear the sounds of their whistling lullabies, the warbling meant to lure in unsuspecting humans, whose flesh the manticores loved to feast upon.

Koro made a noise and she felt him nudging into her mind.

“No,” she said to him with a smile, “it’s not necessary for you to find him. I’m sure he will return and is just fine.”

She listened then to the urgency in Koro’s thoughts and frowned as he made her aware of a new problem.

The other wyverns. He was warning her that they were aware of the campsite … and that they were uneasy and unhappy with the humans’ presence in the valley.

She patted his head and looked around the campsite again. Everyone was sleeping soundly, but she knew Koro’s warning should be heeded as soon as possible. They should pack up and leave before the wyverns got it into their heads to charge at them. She was a wrena, but to only one wyvern. She had no control or communication with the others as far as she knew. She looked up at the moon and judged the time. Almost juquil’s hour. If he held true to form, Garreth would be returning shortly.

Feeling better than she had in days, although not quite healed yet, she got to her feet and tried out her legs. She was weak, she realized. And she knew that how she felt was how Koro felt. He would not be strong enough to stave off a wyvern attack if it came down to that.

Where was Garreth?

She took several cautious steps around the people sleeping in the campsite and moved away. Tired as she was, it felt good to move around on her own steam. These last couple of days her movements had been powered mostly by Garreth.

The air had turned cooler and she took in a deep breath. It was brisk and refreshing. Invigorating. She touched the front of her robe and realized the mem had left it open after checking on her. She was about to tie it closed when she heard a rustling sound in the darkness. Thinking it was Garreth, she turned to face the noise.

There was a sudden scream, the sound of an angry wyvern, as Koro suddenly lunged to his feet and belched flames into the air. The sudden and blinding light revealed a creature, its torso that of a large man, like that of a great cat below the waist and its stinger-tipped tail
like that of a Bytwyte scorpion whipping in deadly snaps of sound as the head and eyes of a sholet lion stared at her through the darkness. The manticore whistled and hissed, its tail darting forward and stinging Koro.

She felt the pain of it instantly and fell to the ground screaming. Koro screamed as well and his tail thrashed about. The campsite erupted into chaos. A second manticore leapt in from an outcropping above them and Koro reared back.

No!
she shouted into his mind, reminding him that, unlike him, the people in the camp were not fireproof. But his flame was his instinctual tool for defense, and she didn’t know if she could countermand his craving to protect himself for very long. The other men in the camp were suddenly set upon by now a total of four manticores. Sarielle struggled to gain her feet, but she was too weak from her ordeal these past days and the feel of the manticore sting was phenomenally painful. Poor Koro! He must be in agony!

And then he was stung by a manticore once more. She screamed again, unable to help herself. The snap and burn of the sting was shocking and relentless. The men struggled to get their swords and fight in the darkness.

Then, out of the darkness, his breath clouding upon the cold air, Garreth leapt into the fray. His sword gleamed under the moonlight, the cut of it sharp in sound. It swung straight through the first manticore’s neck, sending the head of it flying off into the night. Seeing Garreth, a second manticore swung the stinger of its tail straight into his chest, right over his heart, setting him down into the rocks with a resounding smack of flesh meeting stone.

But Garreth was back on his feet with a single smooth movement in the span of a second. He jumped onto the back of the second manticore, severing the tip of its tail with one sharp swing of his blade, and then stabbed the mighty weapon down into its spine. The manticore fell
to the ground, its body writhing in its death throes. By then Koro had regained some control of himself, and with a mighty leap he crashed down onto the third manticore, squashing it under the profound weight of his body. The fourth creature was dispatched by Tonkin and the other men.

When it was over, everyone lay there for a moment panting for breath. Then they began to take stock of one another, to make sure each was all right. Sarielle had moved forward to give Koro a comforting pat, but she stopped dead in her tracks when the firelight lit up Garreth’s chest and revealed the gaping hole over his heart, blood seeping out with every beat. She cried out and rushed up against him.

“Garreth! Sit down! Please, you’re injured!”

“It’s all right,” he said soothingly to her.

“It is not! You’ve been stung in the heart! You’re bleeding! Mem! Mem!”

“Sarielle, please,” he said, grabbing her head in his hands and forcing her eyes to his. “Listen to me. I’m fine. I’m on my feet and I’ll be fine.”

She looked at him through tears on her lashes, her disbelieving eyes running over him. “But … how? You … you should be dead from a hit like that. You should be dead!”

He quieted. “Sarielle, I cannot die.”

“Wh-what?” she asked, stupefied.

“I am immortal. The only thing that can kill me is a god or a god-made weapon.”

“You … you can’t die?” she asked, still dumbfounded.

“No.”

“But … how?”

“That is a long story. One I will tell you as we go. We have worn out our welcome here.”

“Koro agrees,” she said, trying to catch her breath
from all that had just happened, from all that she had just learned.

“Then if he is well enough, we should go. Will he come with us or go back to his cave?”

She looked at Koro. “He says he will stay in his cave and come see me in a few days. The mem has taken him far enough in his healing; he can do the rest on his own and should heal quickly now.”

“All right, then. Let’s break camp and journey out of this valley.”

Using moonlight to guide them, they carefully picked their way across the rocky floor of the valley. Garreth was back on his horse with Sarielle riding in front of him. He was still bleeding from his chest and she could feel the wetness of it against her. She also noted that he felt very cold. His touch made her shiver.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll be warm soon.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she said. “Tell me how you got to be this way.”

“A fool’s journey. I was young and arrogant. My brothers and I sought the Fount of Immortality and we found it. But … we have paid greatly for taking what did not belong to us.”

“So … Dethan is like you?”

“No. He was, but … no longer. He sacrificed his immortality for me.”

“How did he do that?”

“It’s a long story,” he said with a sigh.

“I believe we have the time,” she pointed out.

“Well … the short of it? We were punished that day after we drank from the fountain, each in our own way. For Dethan, he was thrust into the deepest pits of the eight hells.”

“Oh no,” she said, aghast.

“Yes. Because he was immortal, he would burn to death and then resurrect, over and over again. Endlessly. Until
the goddess Weysa came and took pity on him, brought him out of the eight hells in order for him to be her champion of the sword. To fight in her name and win followers for her the way he once had when he was a mortal man.”

“He’s doing that,” she said.

“Well, after a fashion. You see, he was supposed to campaign turning-round, create an impetus, an army that would make any city quail to see it on the horizon. But …”

“But?” she prompted.

“He fell in love. With Selinda. The grandina of the very first city he was trying to conquer. She became pregnant and could not bear to see him leave her side, so … she prayed to Weysa day and night for a way to release him from his vow.”

“And … you were the way?”

“Aye. He traded his immortality for a normal life with Selinda, and I was chosen to take his place as her champion.”

“I see. So how many cities have you won?” she asked.

“Counting Selinda’s and this one, fira? Three. In less than one full turning of the seasons.”

“That’s remarkable,” she said, duly impressed. After a quiet moment she added, “You said you were punished. How?”

“I’d really rather not get into it,” he said evasively. “It’s over now anyway.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s over. I don’t care what you did. You are a good man and do not deserve punishment.”

“So your opinion about me has changed?” he asked with amusement.

“You saved me, and more important, you saved Koro. He’s still just a baby in so many ways.”

“I can’t conceive of him being a baby at that size.”

“He’s only nine. They don’t reach full maturity until
they are twenty. And due to his age, he’s extremely small for a wyvern. Those others that were flying above us, they are much bigger. I worry for him. Sometimes a wyvern will try to steal a nest from another wyvern. It doesn’t happen often, but if a bigger wyvern were to challenge Koro, I’m not certain he would survive. I would much rather he run away than fight.”

“I would much rather it too, since every injury he gets will show up on you,” he said with a frown as he realized just how vulnerable that left her. “Have you ever thought of leaving here? Taking him with you away from the other wyverns?”

“I’ve dreamed of it endlessly,” she said passionately, reminding him that she had spent all her life a captive.

“Well, now maybe your dream can come true. Seems to me the wyvern has all the money you could possibly need. Gems and gold and more. By the way, why do they collect treasure like that? Do you know?”

“They are attracted to shiny things. They are simply trying to line their nests. The hard stones feel good against their hide when they roll around in them. It also helps them to shed old skin when it’s molting season.”

“You know quite a lot about wyverns.”

“Most of it is from Koro. Some of it is from books. The bennesah allowed me to learn to read and then he gave me everything there was to read about wyverns so I could better understand and utilize Koro to his benefit.”

“I have never met a wyvern expert before. Or a wrena.” After a pause he said, “That must have been a frightening journey for you. You had to travel into the mountains, face down the possibility of being attacked by manticores, climb all the way up to a wyvern nest, steal and carry a heavy wyvern egg, and then keep it warm and healthy until it hatched, all the while keeping yourself alive in the wilds of that valley. I honestly don’t
know how you did it. It would have been a challenge even for me. As you have seen, if I had been a normal man, I would have been dead by now.”

“Yes. Well, I was very good at hiding. You see, at that point I was also a runaway slave. The bennesah did not take kindly to slaves who ran away, and he hunted them down zealously. I had to hide from outriders. Luckily the manticores and wyverns were enough to keep them out of this valley. They thought I would have been insane to go so far into that kind of territory and they were afraid to follow for the most part.”

“It must’ve been quite an adventure.”

“I had to do it. I had to make myself invaluable to the bennesah for the sake of my sisters and to keep us together. By the time I got back, he had already sold them. But … needless to say, he brought them back instantly when he saw what I was. He knew he needed them to keep me under his control.”

“You were locked away all day?”

“No. I was locked away when I misbehaved. I was locked away at night. I was never allowed to leave the keep, but I was allowed to use the library or walk the walls and courtyard. I could shop the trade wagons that would come and set up in the bailey. I was never given gold, but the bennesah allowed me to buy things now and again. It was … it was a better life than most slaves could ever expect. He could have worked me to the bone, as he did his other slaves, but he did not.”

“He couldn’t treat you badly. You could have called the wyvern to attack the city at any time.”

“That was why he kept my sisters under guard. He knew I would do anything for them. That I wouldn’t risk them being hurt.” She was quiet for a minute, then said, “I am worried about them. Something happened to them during their flight from the city. They are damaged. I don’t know what it was. Before this they were
such happy children. As happy as they could be as slaves. I … I have not seen them for quite a while, nearly ten days … The bennesah only let me see them as a reward for my good behavior … and when he knew you were coming to attack the city, he kept me firmly locked away for when he would need me most. But I hardly think their treatment would have changed as long as the bennesah sought to control me through them.”