Lokant (32 page)

She turned on the
wine-hued draykon, absolutely intent on killing her for the attack
on her mother. She bit and clawed ferociously, heedless of her own
safety, uncaring as long as she took Isand down with her. Claws
raked fire across her side; she bellowed and turned, darting in and
around Isand’s guard to snap at her neck. Her smaller size gave her
the advantage of speed and agility; her teeth connected, sinking
deeply into the red beast’s flesh. She ripped her jaws free,
revelling in the other draykon’s bellow of pain and the flow of
fresh blood as she circled away and back.

Why fight us?
Isand’s speech was laced with pain, a fact which gave Llandry
considerable satisfaction.
We are the same.

We are not the
same!
Llandry screamed the words at her.
These are MY
people!

Your people?
The
question was heavy with confusion.
That cannot be.

But it is so. And the
woman you may have killed is my mother. For that, I WILL kill
you.

Your mother? Such a
thing is not possible. She is human; you are draykoni.
Isand’s
jaws snapped at Llandry’s flanks again, but half-heartedly.
I do
not wish to fight fellows. Cease your defence of these worthless
creatures.

Llandry attacked again,
raking her claws across Isand’s red hide.
I will not!

Isand shook her great
head and roared. Then she began to retreat, her blood streaming
away to the ground.

We retreat!
she
bellowed. The other two draykoni paused in their harassment of
Pensould; Llandry felt their confusion and resistance to Isand’s
order. But they obeyed it.

As they fell into line
behind Isand, Llandry launched herself in pursuit.

MINCHU!
The name
was roared so loudly that Llandry felt her brain might explode.
Cease your pursuit! NOW!

Llandry flew on.

Pensould’s massive
weight slammed into her from above, knocking her off balance. He
kept on her, herding her to the ground, using his superior size to
cut off her escape. Fighting him every inch of the way, she was
nonetheless forced to earth.

Pensould snapped his
heavy jaws near her face, growling.
You will not DARE to kill
yourself in pursuit of revenge! That is for the likes of Isand.
Your family needs you alive. I need you alive. Stop it now!

Llandry drooped, her
rage dissipating under the weight of Pensould’s disapproval. He was
right, of course. She had lost her temper, something she never
remembered doing before.

And once you are
calm,
Pensould said more gently,
there may be something we
can do for your mother.
His nose nudged gently at her flank;
she was surprised to feel a flash of pain there.
And these must
be tended to also.

For the first time she
noticed that his own hide was striped with wounds and dotted with
abrasions.

I’m sorry, Pensould. I
got carried away.

She felt him sigh, a
whistling of breath through tired lungs.
Well. Let us see what’s
become of your parent.

Parent, singular. She
realised that she hadn’t seen her father. He ought to have been by
her mother’s side; he would have been, if he were here.

Where, then, was
Papa?

When Llandry took her
human shape again, she was alarmed to find bloody wounds decorating
her arms and torso and bruises shading her skin. It hurt to
breathe, and one of her legs felt horribly weak. Pensould was in
little better shape. He wrapped her in a brief hug, soothing her
fears with a rush of affection.

I would tend to these
first, but I fear we may need all of our energy for your
mother.

She nodded and pulled
away from him. They were in the infirmary, waiting to be taken to
Ynara. At first the medics had refused them admittance: Ynara’s
condition was too severe for visitors, they said. They had spoken
to Llandry stiffly, keeping their distance from her.

With a start, she
realised they were afraid of her.

This was a curious
reversal. All her life it was she who had been afraid of other
people, cursedly, irrationally afraid. To find herself in the
stronger position gave her a brief feeling of power.

She had used that rush
of confidence to press her point. The nurses, their fear of her
weakening their resolve, had given in.

‘Please come with me,
Miss Sanfaer.’ A medic appeared in the far doorway, clad in
coveralls and with her hair tightly bound back. She said nothing
further as the two of them followed her upstairs and through the
halls to a private room.

Ynara lay in a narrow
bed, white-faced and unmoving. Her chest still rose and fell, but
her breathing was shallow and irregular. Llandry couldn’t see any
obvious wounds on her, nothing but bruises and cuts.

‘The injuries are
internal,’ said one of the attendant medics. Three of them were in
the room, monitoring Ynara’s condition and keeping her comfortable.
‘She is bleeding somewhere inside, but I can’t tell where from. If
the bleeding doesn’t stop soon, there will be nothing to be done
for her.’

Llandry’s heart twisted
and her breath stopped. Her strong, confident, untouchable mother
was dying. And she was dying because of something Llandry and
Pensould had done.
They
had woken Isand.
They
had
gone ahead with the plan in ignorance, knowing nothing of the
forces they would unleash. It should never have been
undertaken.

Pensould?

He nodded and moved to
the other side of Ynara’s bed, standing opposite to Llandry.

We will do our best,
though I can promise you nothing.

It would have to do.
Llandry took a shaky breath and nodded.

Tell me what to do.

***

Limbane’s plan held one
or two flaws, Andraly thought as she watched the two draykons fly
in to join the conflict. In his usual hazy way, Limbane had dropped
the two of them on the borders of Glinnery, either forgetting to
ascertain where Llandry’s mother lived or simply not caring.

He had also forgotten
to tell Andraly when they departed. She and her fellow Lokant Jace
had been left to catch up. Of course, the two draykons had been
long gone by the time they had emerged from the Library, and so she
and Jace had simply gone ahead to Waeverleyne to await the arrival
of Llandry and Pensould.

Their advantage in
timing gave them ample opportunity to observe the arrival of the
other three draykoni.

‘I’d say we’re too
late,’ Jace muttered as the red draykon laid into a unit of
guards.

‘Warning unnecessary,’
Andraly agreed. She watched dispassionately as a foolhardy Glinnish
woman attempted parley.

‘That’s doomed to
failure.’

‘Stupidest thing I’ve
seen in a long time,’ Jace nodded.

The attempt at parley
ended as she had foreseen. The Glinnish woman’s frail form toppled
to earth, and the red draykon turned its attention back to the
population of Waeverleyne.

That was when Llandry
and Pensould arrived.

‘Oh, beautiful timing,’
Jace said with approval.

‘Couldn’t have been
better.’ Though she wasn’t sure what these two could do against
three draykoni, all of them bigger than Llandry.

In the end, she was
pleasantly surprised.

‘What a demon,’ said
Jace. He actually sounded slightly awed.

Having watched the
small grey draykon drive the enraged red beast away, Andraly had to
agree. The girl was so feeble in person, a cringing, shy thing
without spirit of any kind. Apparently she had hidden depths.

The attacking draykoni
flew away and the show was over. Andraly stretched her limbs and
rolled her shoulders, stiff from staring into the sky for so
long.

‘I’d better tell
Limbane,’ she said.

‘Right.’

And back to the Library
she went.

If there was one thing
Eva particularly detested in life, it was being a failure. At
anything, for any reason. Tren was certainly right about that.

She hadn’t had much
experience of it, perhaps that was why. So when Limbane pronounced
her an inept healer and refused to teach her any more, she had been
irritated, disbelieving and uncomfortably awash with
self-doubt.

‘Never mind,’ said
Limbane with offensive good cheer. ‘You mastered mental control
over both animals and intelligent species before you ever came
here, and your performance with the PsiMap is creditable. With a
bit more practice, you’ll be very good at self-camouflage; your
performance as Andraly was almost good enough to fool me.’ He
patted her arm in a grandfatherly gesture, which only irritated her
more. ‘No partial ever has a full spectrum of abilities. There had
to be something you couldn’t do.’

‘Did there really,’ she
said through gritted teeth.

He chuckled. ‘If you’d
like to prove me wrong, you’re welcome to try, but don’t waste too
much time on it. Regenerating flesh is not your strong point.’

Limbane declared her
training over soon after that, and disappeared on his mysterious
errands. Llandry and Pensould had already gone, followed by Andraly
and the other Lokant, Jace. Eva hadn’t found a reason to like him
much, so far; he was laconic and unfriendly, his grey eyes lacking
warmth. Perhaps she wouldn’t see him again.

That left herself and
Tren unattended and unescorted. She no longer needed the help of a
full Lokant to get around. She could translocate herself and others
without assistance. It was an empowering thought:
almost
enough to make up for her lack of mastery over regeneration.

Tren had stayed away
from her since their conversation in the library. She didn’t regret
it. She certainly refused to admit that she missed him. The boy
should
stay away from her; it would give him some time to
shake off her influence over him.

For she still doubted
not that his blurted confession of affection had more to do with
her Lokant heritage than any sincere depth of feeling. The gulf
between them was too enormous for any other explanation to hold
water. And it had come out of nowhere, this declaration. She had
seen no sign of special interest from him before. Awful thought:
perhaps he had been knowingly insincere, trying to make her feel
better.

That
was a still
more humbling notion, one she tried to shake off. She really
couldn’t take any more belittling reflections.

A small but persistent
part of her heart insisted on hoping she was wrong about Tren. With
the utmost ruthlessness, she squashed it.

When she finally went
in search of him, she adopted a brisk, business-like air designed
to keep him at a distance.

‘Are you ready to
depart?’

‘Perfectly.’ He opened
his door wider to reveal a packed bag waiting just inside.

‘Excellent. I’m going
to need to make some kind of physical contact in order to transport
us both. I apologise.’ She reached out and carefully locked her
fingers around his wrist.

He smiled, but it was a
sad smile. ‘No apology necessary. I promise not to be scandalised.’
He collected his bag with his free hand, then straightened. ‘Where
is it exactly that we’re going?’

She didn’t answer for a
moment. Her mind was already busy, reaching for the PsiMap as
Limbane had taught her. It opened in her mind’s eye and she could
see their Cluster, three worlds nestled around each other. She
searched through, turning them about until she found the spot she
sought.

‘Ullarn,’ she replied.
‘Specifically, Wirllen.’

‘Straight for Wirllen?
Is that a good idea?’

‘Trust me.’ Selecting
the precise location she wanted, she focused her will on
translocation. Energy flashed through her and her body weight
dropped away, fading to nothing. The process of preparing to
translocate was bizarre and still unsettling; it had never felt
that way when she had been merely a passenger.

But then it was over
and she was elsewhere.

‘Freaky.’ Tren tried to
pull back his arm, but she still held his wrist in a fierce grip,
afraid of losing him somewhere on the way. She forced her fingers
apart and he immediately began massaging his wrist.

‘Did you just call me a
freak?’

‘Er, no, certainly not,
never.’

‘Sorry about the, er.’
She made a vague gesture at his arm.

‘No problem. There’s
still blood in it, somewhere.’

‘Let’s get on with it,’
she said. Then, under her breath, ‘I really don’t like Ullarn.’

‘It can’t be as bad as
they say. Surely.’

‘No, really it can.’
She wasn’t looking at him as she spoke: her eyes were busy scanning
their surroundings, checking whether she had brought them to the
right place.

Shame that all
alleyways looked the same.

‘So, where are we?’
Tren asked.

‘
Hopefully,
we
are in a secluded alley off Wirllen’s city square.’

‘Great! And what are we
doing here?’

‘The first thing we’re
going to do is buy a carriage.’

‘A carriage.’

‘And better clothes.
For you as well, I’m afraid. You’re now my factotum.’

‘Er. Yes, your
ladyship.’ Tren stooped his broad shoulders and arranged his
features into a servile expression.

‘Stop that. You can be
normal.’

‘I enjoy theatrics. I
was an amateur thespian once, did I ever tell you that?’

Eva made her way to the
mouth of the alley and he fell in beside her, one leg dragging with
each step.

‘What’s that about? Are
you hurt?’

‘I’m a factotum with a
wooden leg. That’s because I used to be a pirate on the high seas
before -’

‘Tren,’ she said,
allowing an intense weariness to creep into her tone.