Song of the Fairy Queen (14 page)

Around Morgan an eerie silence had fallen, a breathless moment as everyone realized that it might be over. From the corners of his eye Morgan had seen at least one of the Hunters flee, the one he’d caught in the ribs. The other five were dead or dying.

Looking around, Morgan examined the wreckage of the village and his people.

Besides Norris, almost all of them bore either claw or teeth marks, but Norris was the most seriously hurt. They’d lost a horse, but no people.

For that Morgan could only be grateful.

He rode over to the proclamation, ripped it down and held it up for the villagers to see.

“For any of you who don’t know me, my name is Morgan, High Marshal to King Oryan. If you have any more visitors tell them that Morgan and the King’s Marshals send their regards.”

Parents rushed to their children to set them free. Some of the women wept with relief as did one or two of the men, even while they searched the bodies of the dead Hunters for the keys to the shackles.

Now Morgan remembered why he did this.

With a gesture, he and the Marshals rode out, Norris put up before the unhorsed Tyrell.

He knew the villagers would have been grateful enough to feed them but they had little enough to spare. He wouldn’t add to their burden, not with Haerold’s new taxes taking what little they extra they had, if any, as well as trying to take their children.

There were deer, wild boar, and plenty of wild fowl, so they wouldn’t starve.

A covey of quail that burst out of the high grass to startle them provided their dinner. They made a nice meal when cooked stuffed with wild onions and carrots.

Far too far away in her aerie in the deep forests of the south, Kyri felt the magic strike Morgan’s amulet and her breath caught as she leaped up to stare out over the trees. A beat or two of her heart… She waited. He was alive. She let her breath go. Even if she flew at speed, had taken to the thermals, she couldn’t have reached him in time.

Still.

If there was anything the Fair feared, it was fire, but the lightning that had caused fires that had brought her here had passed. The fires were out, although they had come close. It was safe now for her to leave.

She felt another sharp sting…

Morgan. The talisman.

Almost without conscious thought, her wings opened, spread and beat.

Morgan was tired, but there had been Norris’s arm to set and bandage. It had been a bloody mess. That arm wasn’t going to do him much good for a while, it had been badly savaged. He wasn’t even sure it would ever be usable. So they might have lost a man after all. At least Norris hadn’t lost his life, however little consolation that might be if he were that badly crippled. Morgan couldn’t do anything for the pain, either. They didn’t even have whiskey on them.

There were other wounds to bandage as well, and his own, such as they were.

He’d sent out the call to the Fairy, he needed to get word to Oryan.

Now all he could do was wait.

It wasn’t always Kyri who answered and, to a disappointment he pretended not to feel, it wasn’t now. Somehow he knew that even as he heard the whisper of wings in the night. Some of the Fairy flew as silent as owls.

“You’ve seen better days, I think, Morgan,” Dorien said, eyeing him as he settled to the earth, his wings folding against his back.

Dressed little different from any Fairy, Dorien wore loose trousers underneath the tunic/shift that all others of his folk wore.

Morgan couldn’t help but like the wry Fairy.

As with most of his folk, Dorien was slender, but strongly muscled across the chest and shoulders. He was tall for a Fairy, standing nearly eye to eye with Morgan himself. His hair was a longish brown, blowing lightly in the breeze, the feathers of his nearly translucent wings a light bronze.

Morgan smiled, a little tightly. “You’d be right, but you should see the other side.”

Dorien grinned at the thin jest, but he was as empathic as any of his race, he sensed the pain in Morgan. Someone else nearby was even more badly hurt.

Empath he might be, but he was no Healer. He sent out a call and was surprised to be answered from far closer than he’d expected. Kyri had been in the south the last he had heard.

“I need a message to go to Oryan, if you would, Dorien,” Morgan said. “Tell him the Hunters aren’t invincible. Formidable, but not invincible.”

Even the thought of those things as Kyriay described them made Dorien’s stomach tighten. He knew he was good enough with a sword, better with a bow and quicker than most men, but still…

“That is good news,” Dorien said.

Morgan handed him the broadside. “And take him this.”

Dorien glanced over it and all humor fled. He knew how some men valued their coin and how much silk, how many herbs, each piece of gold could buy.

That was a great deal of gold.

Looking at Morgan, Dorien was glad such broad shoulders were there to carry such a weight, for Kyri, for the Kingdom, for all of them…

He nodded. “I’ll do that. How many of you are hurt?”

Sighing, Morgan shrugged. “It’s the price we pay for what we do.”

With a shake of his head, Dorien rolled his eyes and snorted. “Do you not know that some among us are Healers? One comes. I go.”

Wings fluttered, a sharp crack as they caught air. Morgan looked up, some part of him already sensing who it was.

Kyri.

Something in Morgan lightened just at the sight of her and not simply for the pleasure of looking at her lovely face or her shapely body. Although that was also true. As always, his body stirred… and so did his heart, a little, to see her.

Those beautiful wings spread around her, reflecting the firelight, to catch the air and allow her to drop to the earth lightly.

She gave him a look from those pretty eyes, before shaking a finger at him.

Kyri could see the pain in Morgan’s strong handsome face, the shadows in his light eyes.

“You wouldn’t ask, would you?” she chided. “Just for that, you are last.”

She knew well he would prefer it that way.

Their eyes met in understanding and Morgan nodded, smiling a little, already relaxing as she smiled in return.

The truth was he simply hadn’t thought of it.

“Thank you, Dorien,” Kyri said, dismissing him gently.

“My Kyri,” he said, with a small bow.

Flashing her a grin, Dorien nodded and took off.

Kyriay would handle it.

“Now, who is hurt?” Kyri said, her wings folding neatly beneath her shift with a quick flicker to settle the feathers beneath the cloth. “Morgan, how many times do I have to say it? We are here to help. Use it. The Fair are also skilled with bow and sword. This fight is ours as well.”

She could sense the pain and weariness in him.

“Healers too, Morgan. Your people don’t have to suffer. Neither,” she scolded softly, her fingers brushing lightly down his arm, his pain vanishing in their wake, “do you.”

It was charitable to call the place a tavern - it was a stinking hole in the wall that reeked of cheap beer, ale and whiskey, piss and sweaty men. With practiced ease, a busty barmaid made her way through the crowd, her ample hips twitching away from the men that grabbed at her bottom out of long habit. Not a drop spilled from the mugs on her tray.

At one table a foursome played a game of cards with nearly ferocious intensity.

The price of cheating in a place like this would be quite high – very likely your life.

In a corner a trio crouched to roll dice against a wall.

Others sat at tables and nursed their beer or talked in low voices.

Deals were made, items were sold or traded. Not all of what was sold was in the tavern. Some of it was human.

Jacob was happy. He was right in his element. There were half-naked barmaids, ale and whiskey, dice and card games. Life didn’t get better than that. He sighed contentedly and glanced at Morgan across the table.

“You need to get out more, Morgan,” Jacob said.

He pulled the barmaid into his lap for a quick slap and tickle – he tickled and she slapped at him playfully – before he boosted her out of his lap again, with a smack on the bottom to send her on her way. She was homely, but available.

“I get out enough,” Morgan said, amused, and sipped the poor excuse for ale that they offered in this place.

It had been more than a month since he’d slept in a bed. He was fairly certain however that wasn’t what Jacob meant. He wondered whether Jacob shared the barmaid’s bed. It wouldn’t have surprised him.

“When was the last time you had some of that?” Jacob asked, with a lift of his chin at the over-endowed barmaid with her plain face and generous hips, confirming Morgan’s guess.

Morgan stared at him levelly. He wasn’t going to answer that. Sad to say, he simply didn’t have the time and most of the women he saw of late didn’t interest him. Most of them.

There was only one he seemed to want these days.

He needed to get his mind away from that.

“What do you hear?” Morgan asked.

Staring into the swill that they called whiskey here, Jacob’s nose wrinkled as if he smelled something unpleasant. In this place, that said something.

A frown flickered across Morgan’s brow as he saw something in Jacob’s eyes he hadn’t seen before. Discomfort, a touch of uneasiness. Jacob could handle a lot of things, as Morgan knew, so when something disturbed him...

“This town is bad, Morgan,” Jacob said, his voice low. “You and I, we’ve seen a lot of bad…but this place is worse.”

Like Morgan, Jacob had spent most of his life in the Marshals. Most of it had been spent in Morgan’s company, so the two of them had seen a lot of bad. It was hard to imagine too much disturbing Jacob.

Oryan had neither a constabulary nor a standing army. What he had instead were the Marshals, who performed both duties as necessary, either as individuals or a group, as investigators, judges, or as a quick strike force capable of holding an enemy until Oryan could gather his levees and call up the militia. Together and apart Morgan and Jacob had fought reavers of all kinds, from the raiders in the North, to bandits, thieves and slavers in the south, murderers and madmen at one time or another. There was little they hadn’t seen.

Haerold had moved his capital here to Remagne, firing and then abandoning Caernarvon completely and so Jacob had come here. This was where the action was.

Jacob looked around, his sharp brown eyes wary.

Shaking off his mood, he said with a grin, “I hear plenty, though. One thing I hear is you got Haerold pretty pissed off. The Marshals send their regards… damn, Morgan...”

He shook his head, still grinning, but this time in admiration.

“Haerold got the message. I heard he lit up when he did,” Jacob said, with satisfaction. “The Hunters weren’t too happy either. Be careful, Morgan, next time they’ll be ready for you.”

It wasn’t a surprise, but Morgan appreciated the warning. He’d be more than ready for them, too.