Foxfire (66 page)

“Do something!” Keirith demanded.

Her head snapped up. But he was looking at Rigat.

“You're the son of a god! Save him!”

She had been so intent on saving him herself that it hadn't even occurred to her.

Rigat's gaze met hers. For one terrifying moment, she thought he would refuse. Then he nodded.

 

 

 

Rigat watched his mother slice open the back of Darak's tunic and break off the shaft of the arrow. He knew this was what a healer did, knew that she had helped dozens—hundreds—of wounded men. But how could her hand be so steady as she cut into the flesh of the man she loved? How could her voice be so calm as she instructed Hircha to put deadwood on the fire so she would have more light? How could she do anything but weep as Darak vomited up his life's blood?

He had seen men die. Seen some writhing in agony as they were carried into the longhut, and others, white-faced with shock from their wounds. When he was only a child, he had watched his mother set Callie's broken arm, bandage a gash on Faelia's leg, minister to the dozens of minor injuries they all incurred. The threat of illness and injury and starvation had always hung over them. But until today, the specter of death had never entered their home.

He had always been prepared for Darak's heart to fail him, for him to go to sleep one night and never wake up. A clean, peaceful death. Not this. Darak Spirit-Hunter simply couldn't die like this.

Perhaps that was why he had stood by until Keirith's voice jolted him. Or perhaps he was still too dazed by what had happened. How could everything go so wrong so quickly?

Geriv would pay. And that man—Mikal. And Jholianna and the Khonsel if they had known about Geriv's plan. By the time he was finished, they would all be on their knees.

“Rigat!”

Keirith's voice, once again jolting him from his thoughts. Why did his brother keep staring at him as if he were the enemy? And why—when he had come to save them—had Keirith pleaded with him to leave?

He forced himself to smile at his mam, but she was bent over Darak. “Brace him,” she said, shooting quick glances at Keirith and Callie. She gripped the handle of the ram's horns and pulled. Darak slumped against Keirith. Unable to look at him, Rigat kept his eyes on his mam: her face screwed up in a grimace as she tugged, her body rocking backward as the arrowhead jerked free, her quick, fierce smile as she stared at her bloody prize.

As he eased past Hircha, his mam pressed a damp wad of yarrow leaves against the wound and murmured, “Hurry.”

“Take them off,” Rigat said. “I need to put my hands on him.”

He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at the wound, but beneath the warm slipperiness of the blood, he could feel the torn flaps of flesh where the arrow had penetrated Darak's back and the deep incisions his mam had made while probing for the arrowhead. This was what it was to be human—to have your flesh ripped open by an enemy's weapon, to bleed and suffer while a healer fought to keep you alive.

His power absolved him of such a fate. It separated him from everyone in the hut, from everyone in the world. His power was stronger than a dozen healers. His power was life.

It crackled through his body, eager as ever to do his bidding. But he had called on it so often in the last sennight: to save Jholianna, to search for Fellgair, to enter Chaos. Was there enough left?

He had to control its impatience or the initial shock might kill Darak. Today, he needed the gently flowing stream, not the raging fire.

He couldn't risk touching Darak's spirit; he knew too well how he would react to that invasion. Instead, he let the power fill him, let it pass from his tingling palms into Darak's torn flesh. Tiny bumps rose under his fingertips, and Darak shivered. As the wash of calm flowed through him, his breathing eased and his frantic pulse steadied.

The power spiraled deeper, tunneling like a vole along the path the arrow had taken, past severed arteries and veins and muscles that waved like fronds of lakeweed. A river of blood pulsed through the tunnel, thick and red and relentless, driven by the inexorable beat of Darak's heart. It was like swimming upstream against a strong current, but his power was stronger still, cleaving through the river toward the fiery glow at the end of the tunnel.

Darak's body heaved. Above the murmur of frightened voices, he heard blood splattering on the bracken. Relentlessly, he shut out the sensations, but a shiver rippled down his spine.

He could see it now, the wound like a narrow crevice in a rock. The lung looked like a flaccid waterskin—just like Jholianna's. The crevice glowed a malevolent red. He had to call on more of his power to reach it, struggling against the fierce current of blood that seemed determined to drive him back.

Another shiver coursed through his body as he reached the crevice and discovered what looked like a red lake inside a cavern. The cavern shuddered with every breath Darak took. Tiny waves moved across the lake as blood slopped through the crevice, leaking into Darak's lung, drowning him.

Panicked, he wondered if he should have sealed the walls of the tunnel to stop the flow of blood. Should he go back and start again? Or seal the crevice first? But if he left the lake of blood inside, Darak would continue choking on it.

He fought back his panic and directed his power at the crevice, but the damage was so much more extensive than the gash Fellgair had sliced across his wrist, as impossible to contain as the poison that had coursed through Jholianna.

He pulled deeper on his gift, felt the jolt of renewed power surging through his body, surging into Darak's, no longer a gentle stream but a molten river of fire. He was the Trickster's son, the most powerful mortal in the world. He could suck dry a lake of blood and dam up a punctured lung and hold back the raging current that wanted to steal Darak's life.

He poured his power into Darak. His wounded body devoured it greedily and demanded more, insatiable in its hunger, desperate to absorb the life-giving energy.

From a great distance, he heard a dull roar like waves beating against the shore. Nay, not waves. A drum. Thudding like the footsteps of a giant striding through the forest.

The drumbeat pounded into him and through him, throbbing through his chest, his head, his fingertips. A second drum answered the first, growing stronger with every beat. As if another giant stalked the first, guided by the call of the drum.

More, it demanded.

Numbness crept through him, and the same rapturous tingling he experienced when he climaxed. But this sensation was keener, sharper. A hundred needles piercing his spirit as Othak's had pierced his flesh to create the antler tattoo.

More.

When he saw the curtain of light, he panicked, knowing his power was failing. He swayed, both hands on Darak's back to support himself, his cheek resting against the curve of Darak's neck.

The light flared red and orange and white, a wild dance driven by the pounding of the drums.

The exploding stars blinded him. His breath came in feeble gasps. Numbness stole sensation from his limbs. He had to clutch Darak's shoulders to keep from collapsing.

More.

He wanted to weep, to cry out that he had so little left to give. And if he gave it—if he sacrificed all his power—what then? Darak might live a year. Or his heart might fail him on the morrow.

And he would have sacrificed everything: the ability to heal even the smallest injury, the worship of the Zherosi, the admiration of his queen, and the years of life—a hundred? a thousand?—that were his birthright.

No one could ask so much of him. Not even Darak. His body might demand more, but Darak knew the life of one man was less important than the greater good. And what could be more vital to the world than the preservation of his foster-son's power?

The drumbeats faded. The flickering dance froze. He saw Fellgair lift his head, golden eyes watching him. Was he here? In the hut? Nay, it was only his imagination, a vision brought on by his weakness. How else could he feel the breeze in the First Forest die? And the green leaves of the Oak and the Holly cease their soft rustling?

The rhythmic pulses of the three spirits inside the One Tree fell silent. Even the eternal thrum of the World Tree hesitated. It was like that moment before dawn, when the world held its breath, waiting.

Behind his closed eyelids, Rigat sensed a burst of light. Bracken crunched behind him. He heard a gasp. And Faelia's voice, demanding to know what was happening, what was wrong with Fa, what was
he
doing here, what was he doing to Fa?

Rigat yanked his hands away.

His head drooped, but he was too tired to raise it, too tired to explain. His body felt drained and limp, but deep inside, the tiny kernel of power glowed. It would be days before he dared draw on it again, but it was there. It was safe. It was his.

He heard voices, but the words flowed over him in a meaningless stream. Then a hand grasped his shoulder.

“Why did you stop?” Keirith demanded.

The buzz of conversation died. He could feel them watching him, waiting. Like Fellgair and the Tree-Lords and the World Tree.

“Rigat! He's still bleeding.”

His head snapped up. “I couldn't do any more!”

Keirith's face looked like a skull, but the fear on his mam's was worse.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered as his gaze slid away from her.

He heard her ordering Keirith and Callie to lay Darak on his pallet. Asking Hircha for more compresses. Silencing Faelia's protests with a sharp, “Not now! Help me with your father.”

Amid the flurry of movement, he could only remain on his knees, staring down at the blood-soaked bracken. Then he felt breath against his cheek.

“Will he live?” Keirith whispered.

“For now.”

Keirith's fingers dug into his arm. “How long?”

“I don't know. He needed so much . . .”

Keirith drew back his hand as if he had touched something dirty. “You stopped.”

Only once before had he heard such coldness in his brother's voice—in the moments before the rockslide when Keirith had passed judgment on the Zherosi.

“If you hadn't interfered, Geriv would have exchanged me for Korim, and everything would have been fine. Now—when Fa really needs you—you'd rather save your power than him.”

His mam's eyes squeezed shut. Before he could explain, Faelia strode toward him and yanked him to his feet. “You have this . . . this gift. And you won't use it?”

“I did! I tried!”

“Not hard enough,” Keirith said.

“I didn't have enough power. And even if I did, the healing wouldn't last. It never lasts. You don't understand. Any of you. You have no idea—”

Faelia spat in his face. Rigat reared back, but she seized his tunic with one hand and backhanded him across the mouth with the other. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees.

“You could have saved him.”

Her kick took him in the belly. He gasped and toppled over. His power was too weak to stop her assault or even open a portal and escape. All he could do was curl into a protective ball.

Pain exploded in his side as she kicked him again.

“Stop!” his mam cried.

But Faelia was mindless in her fury, kicking him and screaming curses. “What kind of a son are you?”

The blows suddenly ceased, and he dared to look up. Callie had pinioned Faelia's arms, but she continued to struggle and curse.

“Faelia.”

She went still at the sound of Darak's voice.

“Stop.”

Too weak to sit up, Darak stared back at him from his pallet. All his life, Rigat had felt those gray eyes on him, studying him with mingled suspicion and love. Now, he found only sadness.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“It's not your fault.”

And somehow that was worse than Faelia's curses or Keirith's accusations or his mam's misery. Darak knew he could have saved him—not forever, not without another infusion of power—but he could have given him another sennight, another moon, another year. Darak knew—and still his father forgave him.

He had to crawl to the doorway of the hut, dig his fingertips into the chinks between the stones to pull himself upright. He stood there, swaying with the effort to keep his feet, unwilling to look back and find those sad eyes watching him.

He shoved the doeskin aside and stumbled into the sunlight, only to be confronted by a knot of villagers, drawn by Faelia's screams. Some faces held confusion, others concern; a few simply looked startled to see him. As he staggered away, another face swam into view, mouth working in inarticulate rage.

“Ree gahh!”

Madig pounded the earth with his stick, all the while shouting and clutching Othak's arm. Othak's empty eye socket proclaimed him Tree-Father—dear gods, when had Gortin died?—and his fingers flew in the sign to avert evil. All around him, Rigat saw other hands doing the same.

“With his own voice, Madig condemns him!” Othak shouted. “Here is the man who attacked him. The man who used his unholy power to try and kill him. And now he's tried to murder his own father.”

Voices muttered his name. Mouths twisted with revulsion. He glanced around wildly, fixing those nearest him with the most threatening stare he could muster. They all retreated. Weak as he was, he could still make them fear him.

He backed toward the entrance of the hill fort, but they followed.