Thawed Fortunes (31 page)

Jain didn't need to see the wounds covering
Va'del's body to know that their net effect was serious, she could
feel them through the link. Strength was flowing out of Va'del
faster even than the link could replace it, but Jain pulled more
fiery agony through her being and shored him up as much as she was
able.

The concern and weariness flowing back to
Jain through the link served as a goad, and she continued to
augment Va'del long past the point where her depleted body normally
would have collapsed in exhaustion. Determination eventually proved
unequal to her failing flesh, and she felt the glowing strands of
augmentation slip through her mental fingers as she lost
consciousness.

##

Va'del felt his death approaching with a
certainty that should have scared him. He couldn't stop Be'ter, and
once Va'del failed, Be'ter was going to slaughter all of the female
Guadel.

Strangely enough, his impending death didn't
scare Va'del. Instead it placed an odd kind of distance between him
and his anger, a distance that was allowing him to do things he
never would have believed possible.

Jain's collapse had left Be'ter with a
dreadful advantage, and it was all Va'del could do to follow
lightning-fast strikes that impacted with more power than any one
man should be able to generate. Moving more by instinct and feel
than sight and conscious thought, Va'del strung together a chain of
parries, blocks and ripostes that just barely allowed him to hold
his ground at the price of a few more shallow wounds.

Be'ter reeled back from the
exchange, and for a second Va'del's mind refused to make sense of
the red streak on the older boy's arm. 
It isn't possible.

Rage seemed to wash over Be'ter, the icy
edges of it reaching out to try and suck away Va'del's hard-won
calm. "I'll kill her. They're all dead, but I'll make sure she
suffers before I finally slit that pretty, white throat."

A vision of Jain dead in a pool of her own
blood seemed to form before Va'del's eyes with a surge of emotions
that skittered over the surface of his shrinking detachment. If
Be'ter had waited a few more heartbeats, Va'del might have lost his
internal war, and the focus that had kept him alive so far. Instead
Be'ter sprang forward with a scream, and blades swooped and darted
between them in a flowing veil.

Pain blossomed on Va'del's leg, then his arm,
and somehow his body seemed to anticipate the next blow, moving so
that Be'ter's sword struck empty space, and then bringing his
dagger around in a short thrust that left it embedded in the taller
boy's chest.

Once again, Va'del's mind seemed unable to
understand what he was seeing. Be'ter's sword was falling from
hands no longer able to grip it, tumbling downward with a laziness
that was impossibly slow.

For a moment Be'ter's eyes still overflowed
with hate, but before his weapon had even finished falling to the
ground the rage disappeared, replaced with contrition so practiced
that Va'del almost doubted the memory of what he'd seen a heartbeat
before.

"Wait, don't kill me, I can help you."

Time had resumed its normal flow, and a host
of other sounds suddenly competed for Va'del's attention.

The muted clash of arms from somewhere below
momentarily came to the forefront only to be replaced with Jeeves'
labored breathing which in turn was overwhelmed by sobbing from
somewhere in the back of the room.

Va'del's calm control over his emotions
suddenly collapsed, leaving him exposed to a torrent of feelings
that changed with a fluidity that made it hard to breathe.

A familiar voice pulled Va'del back to the
present, and he looked down, more than a little amazed when he met
Jeeves' eyes. "He's right, he's more useful alive than dead, get
one of the sisters to heal him before he bleeds out."

Va'del didn't believe what he was hearing,
didn't believe that after everything Be'ter had done, he'd be
allowed to live. The earnestness of Jeeves' gaze didn't make the
order real, but the smug satisfaction on Be'ter's face, smoothed
away almost before Va'del realized what he was seeing, made the
command real, solidified his rage.

Jeeves said something else, but Va'del
ignored the meaningless sounds and gave into the fury.

Va'del clawed his way back to consciousness,
driven by a need to escape nightmares where he alternately killed
Be'ter in a spray of blood, or failed and was forced to watch Jain
and the other women die.

Quiet moaning filled the room, and Va'del
opened his eyes to find that he'd been placed on a bed. Other than
that, he was very nearly lying in the same place he'd fallen after
killing Be'ter. There were so many wounded it was actually amazing
that there was anyone left to care for them. The room had seemed
full before, but now there was barely even room to walk between the
injured.

The few ambulatory individuals in the room
were all either bandaged in numerous places, or showing the sickly
gray skin of someone who'd pushed too hard wielding the power.
About the time Va'del realized that some of the moaning was coming
from him, a bruised guardsmen, with a bandage around his arm and
another around his forehead, saw Va'del was awake and shuffled over
with a water skin and some bread.

"How do you feel, sir?"

"Terrible, but I think I'll probably live.
What happened?"

"Well, we're still missing some information
since a number of Guadel and guardsmen haven't woken up yet, but as
nearly as we can tell the initial ambushes were quite the success,
unfortunately they came inside in larger numbers earlier than our
plan allowed for."

Va'del took a hefty drink of the tepid water
and then nodded for the man to continue as he started on the
bread.

"By the time people started trying to fight
their way through to close the main door it was too late. It looks
like Si'mon tried to get there sooner, but he and the guardsmen
with him were cut down by archers."

Va'del felt a wave of sorrow wash through him
at the realization that the wiry old caravan master was gone. For
all that Si'mon hadn't had any more of a reason than anyone else,
he'd still always treated Va'del with respect.

It looks like we won't be able to complete
this trip together either.

"I was with Va'ma when he ran into the group
of men that Vladir was commanding. It was the most amazing thing
I've ever seen. He was charging along when he suddenly got clumsy
like you all do when you drop partway out of link. He took hits
from four arrows, and still managed to put a knife through the
Baron's throat before he finished falling."

"He's dead too then?"

The guard shook his head. "Nope, he must be
the toughest man alive. When he hit the ground it drove two of the
arrows clean through him, and broke the other two off, but after
we'd cut down the Baron's men we came back and found he was still
alive."

Va'del found himself oddly relieved that
Va'ma had lived. The grizzled warrior had saddled Va'del with
Vi'en, but other than that he was a good sort by and large. Against
the larger canvas of loss they'd just experienced, even the
survival of people Va'del actually despised felt like a
miracle.

Thoughts of his wife awoke a sudden surge of
guilt as Va'del realized that she was probably dead. "My wife,
Vi'en, did she make it?"

"No, sir. There were four of us detailed to
get Va'ma back here so the women could work on him, and she was
dead when we arrived."

Va'del felt a complicated sadness well up
inside him. It wasn't grief over her departure as much as it was
regret that they'd never come to the kind of understanding he and
Cindi had eventually reached. That and a healthy share of guilt
over his sudden relief that he'd never have to suffer her presence
inside his mind again.

The guardsman didn't seem to expect Va'del to
say anything else. He accepted Va'del's now-empty plate, and then
paused before leaving.

"Sir, I just wanted to apologize on behalf of
all of us. For all that some of the candidates are pompous little
snots with an inflated idea of their own importance, we have
nothing but respect for the Guadel. Nobody was quite sure how to
treat you when this whole journey started, so we all gave you a bit
of a cold shoulder. Partly that was because some of the rumors as
float around after the day colors have gone and been replaced by
the nighttime cycles, but mostly it was because we figured nobody
as had been a candidate for such a short time could have possibly
had all the arrogance sweated out of them yet."

The man was nearly old enough to be Va'del's
father, but he shifted about from foot to foot with nervousness
now. "Well, we were all wrong. You've more than proved you deserve
to be treated with all the respect we'd treat any of the full
Guadel, and we're sorry for any offense we may have given."

Va'del's world seemed to be spinning, good
news and bad mixing together with relief and guilt to the point
where he could hardly separate his thoughts, but he managed a
solemn nod. "There isn't anything to apologize for, but I
appreciate the thought guardsman..."

"Rogers, sir, guardsman Rogers."

As Rogers walked away, Va'del sank back down
into his bed and tried to make sense of everything running through
his head.

Javin limped in from the hallway, and seeing
that Va'del was awake, carefully made his way over.

"Jain's okay. It seems she came awfully close
to burning herself out, but she'll recover with a bit of rest."

Another little flare of guilt started to life
as Va'del realized he should have asked after her before Rogers
left, but the feeling suddenly died as he realized that he hadn't
asked because on some level he'd already known she was okay.

We've lost some old friends, and made a few
new ones to fill in some little parts of the holes they left, but
Jain's fine, and somehow that means everything that comes
afterwards can be endured.

Jain leaned against Va'del as they sat on the
battlements, and tried to ignore the fact that he all but vibrated
from tension.

"So it's really over?"

"Kind of. Apparently after both of us passed
out, Javin made it up just in the nick of time to hold off a fairly
large group of soldiers that Kra'ven had sent in with instructions
to make sure Be'ter got the job done."

"He held them off all by himself?"

Va'del nodded. "You know him, he hasn't
spoken about it other than to downplay how hard it was, but the
servants still haven't gotten around to cleaning up all of the
blood in the hallway. Everyone seems desperate to turn me into a
hero for standing off Be'ter, but there are so many other people
who've done things just as vital."

You flinched again. It is like someone opens
up one of your wounds again each time you mention him. Why won't
you confide in me?

"Let them look up to you. After all of the
death, everyone needs heroes to make it all seem worthwhile.
Besides, you deserve a measure of respect for having bailed out the
Council yet again."

"I don't know that it
really
was
worthwhile. Most of us survived, but Kra'ven is out there
somewhere with a fairly good-sized army, Mali was found dead
alongside the road, and all the evidence points towards the idea
that Vladir wasn't responsible for driving the bag'ligs up towards
us in the first place, so we didn't even achieve the thing that
brought us all down here."

Mention of Mali sent a shiver through Jain.
"Did it really look like a suicide? They won't tell us anything
about it other than that she was found dead."

"It looked that way. Not to say that Kra'ven
couldn't have made murder look like suicide, but I think she was
probably more valuable to him alive. She must have just snapped
after Be'ter died."

Jain found herself wrapping her arms more
tightly around Va'del. "It must have been so terrible for her. She
made so many bad decisions, but they were all because she loved
him."

"But he didn't love her back. Or at least if
he did, he didn't love her enough."

Va'del placed his hand under Jain's chin and
gently pulled her face up to look at him. "There are far too many
bad decisions made with love as the justification. I'm sorry I
agreed to marry Vi'en. It was the wrong choice. I promise you I
won't be backed into doing something like that again. The next time
I wed, it will be you I face across the marriage candle, and
nothing the Council can do will change that."

--
The Story Continues
in
Brittle Bonds
--

Acknowledgments:
 
Thanks need to go out to all
the usual suspects, friends and family, who've continued to provide
support in countless ways. You all know who you are.

Special thanks to Scott Poe from
http://indiebookblogger.blogspot.com/, who does a lot to help get
the word out about up-and-coming authors, and who was very generous
with his time and platform to help get the word out about the
Guadel Chronicles generally and Thawed Fortunes
specifically--thanks, Scott.

Additional thanks and acknowledgment need
made to Obsidian Dawn, www.obsidiandawn.com, for one of the brushes
used in the creation of the cover for Thawed Fortunes.

As always, the biggest debt is owed to my
wife, Katie, who not only helped with the editing, but also put
together the perfect cover, in addition to picking me back up when
the climb seemed impossible.

Author's
note:
 
I
truly hope that you've enjoyed Thawed Fortunes. If you have, please
let others know about your new find.