Greendaughter (Book 6) (23 page)

“I’ve got to get troops into that gap,” Sharl said urgently, taking Rivkah’s hands. “We need that hail. Can you do it?”

“We’ll do it,” Rivkah said firmly, kissing Sharl quickly. “Now go. As long as the mages are working on the walls and the catapults are south, we’re safe enough. Just an hour, that’s all I need.”

Rivkah and Loren started the spell immediately, Jeena waiting quietly by until her strength could be of use. Val and Chyrie stayed at the battlements, watching fearfully as another section of wall fell under the onslaught of the redoubled magical attack. Wind gathered around the tower as the spell progressed, and Val and Chyrie fetched their furs to keep them warm as they continued their vigil.

(They are not in the city yet,)
Val thought comfortingly
. (The soldiers are holding them back, for the gaps are too narrow for a large force to pass through.)

(Is there nothing we can do?)
Chyrie thought
. (I feel useless here.)

(Nothing unless you can bring the cold season early,)
Val thought quietly
, (or summon up a fire god to defend us.)

Suddenly he went still.

(I must speak to Rivkah,)
he thought quickly, his eyes widening.
(I think there is a way—)

He turned and ran across the tower top toward the mages, leaving Chyrie staring behind him a moment before she hurriedly followed.

“Wait!” Val shouted to the mages, screaming over the howling wind. “I know a better way!”

Jeena turned, and her eyes grew wide as she stared at something beyond Val. Chyrie whirled even as a new whistling sound grew over the storm, turning just in time to see a flaming boulder plunging toward them.

There was not even time to scream. There was only time for one thought—
(Mother Forest, please spare my children!)
—as something slammed hard into Chyrie, throwing her backward, and the ball of fire hit and the world exploded.

Chyrie flew backward and struck the battlement hard, but did not entirely lose consciousness as fire washed briefly over her, singeing her hair, and the tower shook under her. The pain in her head and back as she struck the stone was nothing to the sudden, rending tear within her as a part of her soul was torn away. For a moment she was too dazed to understand; then mind and heart and voice screamed as one.

(VALANN!)

There was no answer.

Groaning with pain, Chyrie pushed herself to her hands and knees and crawled back through the smoking rubble, oblivious to the pain as the hot stones burned or cut her hands, shaking her head to clear it. She was only marginally aware and relieved that her unborn children still stirred vigorously in her belly. She used a huge chunk of the battlement to lever her to her feet and forced herself to look for what she dreaded to see.

Valann’s face was very peaceful, what remained of it, his
open eyes calm and clear. From the position of his charred body, Chyrie realized that the object that had struck her before the fireball hit had been Valann. He had shoved her out of the path of the flaming ball.

She touched his lips, feeling the fading of his life warmth, too stunned even to grieve. There was a huge empty place inside her, a place that had once held warmth and love.

Two hearts that beat as one
—

“Chyrie—” It was Rivkah, dirty and battered, her cheek bleeding heavily down her chin, but alive. She was cradling a keening Weeka. “I saw what happened. Loren’s dead, too, and Jeena’s leg is broken. There was nothing I could do. There just wasn’t time.”

Two bodies, one spirit
—

“No,” Chyrie whispered, reaching out to close Valann’s eyes. “No, no.”

“We’ve got to get off this tower,” Rivkah insisted. “The barbarians are in the city, those that didn’t turn to attack the forest. We’re too exposed up here.”

We are the seedlings of the Mother Forest.

The seedlings—

Follow an oak back to its beginning and you find a seed,
Riuma had said.
This is the door to the heart of the Mother Forest. . . the seed to which we return
—

“NO!” Chyrie screamed.

She dove deep into herself, down to that secret place Riuma had shown her, smaller and smaller, the tiny seed at her roots that was the door to the heart of the Mother Forest, and
REACHED
with all herself.

Life exploded into Chyrie: life pulsing, stretching up tendrils to the surface of the soil, pushing upward to the world with blind seeking power; green life, brown life, golden life, life with scales and fur and feathers, life that twined up the trees and stretched out branches, life that dug into the soil and fed from the earth, life that swam, that flew, that crawled, that ran, that burrowed—

She was at the heart of the Mother Forest, she
was
the Mother Forest, and these were Her leaves.

Behind the surge of life came agony as a flower was trampled under pounding human feet, as chickens burned in the city’s pens, as a Blue-eyes fell beneath the stroke of a great axe, as a panicked bird flew into a tree and broke its neck, as a bolt of lightning from the human city struck among the barbarians, burning them and the grass beneath them. She seemed to be drowning in a river of blood that spilled onto the earth, soaking it to the very roots—

(No, love. Turn away.)

And there was awareness, and with that awareness came fear, the fear of a doe fleeing the battle behind her, the fear of a blackbird waiting helplessly on her nest as the tree burned, unwilling to leave her eggs, the fear of a spider as a heedless sword swept toward its web—

(Turn away.)

All around her a hundred lives flickered and went out, from worms and insects crushed beneath unheeding feet to elves cut down in battle or in flight as the humans’ scythes cut down the grain, to guards falling from the battlements, arrows piercing their armor. Chyrie could not open her mouth, but she was screaming in agony, lost in the pulsing life, lost in the pain, lost in the minds of a thousand thousand lives—

(No, my she-fox. I will not let you go.)

A hand reached out to her in the maelstrom and she clasped it gratefully, felt warm arms close about her, pulling her away from the vortex that threatened to pull her down. The storm of life, of awareness, of death, raged in her mind, but she stood firm on a steady rock amid that storm.

(I knew it.)
Valann chuckled, his beard rough against her cheek
. (Did I not say you would pull me back from the Mother Forest Herself? But I was wrong. Instead you came after me. You must go, love. This is not for you now.)

(You cannot leave me,)
Chyrie thought desperately.
(I cannot live with half of myself gone.)

(You cannot stay here,)
Valann thought gently.
(You must return to yourself. You have our two children to bear. Listen, you must tell Rivkah the answer. Dusk told us that the barbarians fled from the shaking of the ground, remember? She and her mages must make the ground shake to frighten them back. You must tell her that.)

(I will not leave you,)
Chyrie thought adamantly
. (If you must stay, then so must I.)

(I am a part of the Mother Forest now,)
Valann told her kindly
, (and She of me. To hold me to you is to hold Her—)
For a moment the maelstrom engulfed her again.

(Then so be it,)
Chyrie thought, and holding Valann tight, she
reached.

Chaos swallowed her, but safe in Valann’s arms, she held firm to her purpose, pulling away from the swirling, expanding life, the thousand thousand awarenesses that flowed around and through her, the pain of a thousand thousand deaths and as many births, back through the door to herself, to the top of the watchtower where Rivkah was shaking her desperately. More painful was the horrible battering of the mage’s thoughts against her mind—grief that Loren was dead, concern for Chyrie, regret that Valann was dead, worry that Sharl was still in danger—and Chyrie screamed, clasping her hands to her head to contain the thoughts that, it seemed, must burst forth.

Then Val was there, once more her anchor against the flood, and Chyrie clung to him gratefully.

(Tell her.)

The terrible spinning awareness made it difficult to speak, but Chyrie forced her eyes open, pulling on Rivkah’s hands to stop her worried babbling. Weeka scrambled from Rivkah’s lap to Chyrie’s and huddled there.

“The—earth—” Chyrie said painfully, pulling each word from the swirling in her mind. “It—shakes.”

Suddenly Jeena appeared in Chyrie’s vision.

“What is it, Chyrie?” she said quietly. “What are you trying to say?”

“Shaking—” Chyrie tried again. “The earth—”

Jeena reached out to touch Chyrie’s cheek, and Chyrie felt a brief wisp of thought touch her, only to be swept away by the whirling currents in her mind.

Jeena fell back as if pushed.

“She is with the Mother Forest,” Jeena gasped, pressing her hands over her eyes as if to shut out what she had seen. She shook her head briskly and took her hands away from her eyes, turning back to Chyrie.

“The earth shakes,” Jeena repeated. “Shaking the earth. What do you mean? Can you tell me anything more?”

Chyrie gritted her teeth and clutched hard at Rivkah’s hands, drawing some solidity from their strength.

“Their god,” she gasped out. “They flee—”

“What Dusk’s prisoner said,” Rivkah said swiftly. “They come south when the earth shakes under them, believing the fire god is near breaking free there. But what does it mean?”

Jeena was silent for a moment, then her eyes widened.

“The earth must shake!” Jeena exclaimed. “That is what she meant. If the earth shakes, they will believe the fire god will break free here, and they will flee from it. Is that what you meant, Chyrie?”

Chyrie nodded gratefully.

“Can you make a spell to shake the earth?” Jeena asked Rivkah anxiously. “My people’s magic is ill suited for such a thing.”

“There’s a spell to move earth,” Rivkah said slowly. “I suppose if it were done on a large enough scale—but it’ll take some time to set up, and I’ll have to find the other mages first.”

(Let her go,)
Valann said
. (You and I will do something about the ones in the forest, and keep the army from fleeing in that direction.)

“Come on, let’s get you down off this tower,” Rivkah said, reaching for Chyrie.

“No.” Chyrie pushed Rivkah violently away; for a moment her fear cleared the confusion in her mind, and she waved Jeena away as well. “Go!”

“I can’t leave you here,” Rivkah argued. “This tower could collapse at any time. I don’t know how badly damaged it is.”

“No.” Jeena laid her hand on Rivkah’s arm, never taking her eyes from Chyrie. “The Mother Forest watches over her. Leave her be. Come, I will help you find the others after I am sure my son is safe. Arguing only wastes time while elves die.”

Troubled, Rivkah let Jeena pull her away. Once they were away from her, the barrage on Chyrie’s mind slowed a little.

She slipped the trembling chirrit into the front of her tunic and painfully crawled through the broken stone to the battlements, pausing only for a moment to touch Loren’s still body. Loren had long since fled his broken flesh, and Chyrie passed by.

From the top of the tower she could see all the way to the forest, the bobbing lights there the only sign of the battle being waged in the Heartwood. But those bobbing lights belonged to the humans, no elf ever being so foolish as to carry fire through the forest, and they penetrated far into the trees.

(Shall we show them how the Mother Forest protects Her own?)
Val asked
. (Can you be strong enough?)

(With you, I can be strong,)
Chyrie thought
. (The Mother Forest has given me much. Let me be Her weapon tonight.)

(We two are a sword none can break,)
Valann agreed
. (Come, then, and let us strike.)

This time Chyrie was more prepared when she and Valann passed through that inner door. Now, however, Chyrie made no attempt to avoid the swirling vortex at the heart of the Mother Forest; instead, letting Valann be her anchor, she
reached
directly into it—

—and soared up from the roots to the millions of leaves above.

Were it not for Val’s comforting presence, Chyrie would have surely gone mad as she looked out through a million eyes, sank a million roots into the earth, felt the wind pass over her bark/skin/fur/feathers/leaves—her mind could never hold it all, all the many awarenesses around her, lives flaring and flickering out and beginning. Chyrie concentrated her attention on the western part of the forest, where the elves fought desperately against the invaders, but still the inexorable force pushed them back, little by little.

(They are the leaves of the Mother Forest,)
Val said, his love steadying her
. (But all life comes from the seed, and we are that seed. We are a part of each of these, as they are of us, as your fingers are a part of your body. Let us flex those fingers.)

Together, the power of the vortex flowing through them, Val and Chyrie
reached.

Their fingers flexed.

Humans cried out and broke off their attack as vines reached up from the earth to twine about their feet, and branches reached down from the trees to switch at their faces. Squirrels leaped from the trees and foxes from the bushes to claw and bite. Stags lowered their heads and charged. Snakes abandoned their holes to slither up the humans’ legs and bite. The elves stared unbelieving as birds plummeted from the sky and the trees to peck and claw at the invaders’ eyes, as bears charged from the thickets roaring their anger.