The Companions of Tartiël (26 page)

Kaiyr nodded once. “Very well. If you do not return in five minutes, Master Caineye and I will come to your aid.” He folded his arms in his sleeves and said in a quieter tone, “I do not know if we can weather another battle in our current condition, however.” Then, pulling from his sleeve a thin, wooden wand he had bought in Andorra, he touched it to several of his wounds. Faint runes glowed blue along the length of the wand as it dispensed gentle healing energy from its tip, sealing several deep gashes from the dragon’s near-misses.

Wild gave him a thumbs-up. “Got it. I’ll be careful.” He scampered off and disappeared into the shadows. Kaiyr and Caineye, with their exceptional perception, could just barely make out the halfling’s form as he skulked his way along the base of the wall and slipped around the corner into Andorra.

“We nearly died getting out of that place,” Caineye muttered, standing in the trees with Kaiyr. “I didn’t think we’d be trying to get back in all of a sudden.” He reached down and patted Vinto, who sat down next to his master.

Kaiyr regarded the druid levelly. “Indeed,” he said, turning back to watch the ruins of the gate. “I cannot decide whether this silence is something to be embraced or feared.”

Caineye said nothing, imitating the way the blademaster occasionally chose to acknowledge a statement with silence. The two of them waited for Wild, but the five minutes came and went, and the halfling did not reappear.

Kaiyr stepped back onto the wide path leading to Andorra. “Come. Wild may need our aid, though I have heard no commotion as of yet.” Together, he, Caineye, and Vinto stalked toward the gate. None of the archers who had been firing down upon them stood atop the palisade’s battlements and guard towers. The only sound that reached their ears was the crackling of the torches and the distant howls of the Terth’Kaftineya communicating with each other.

They crouched at the corner of the gate, and Kaiyr peered surreptitiously around the corner. What he saw made his eyes widen. “Are they… dead?” he asked the air.

“What’s going on?” Caineye said as Kaiyr rose and strode openly through the gates. He, too, rose and followed, Vinto padding along beside him. “By the gods… Is this… The curse…”

Kaiyr knelt beside the prone form of a woman, her body that of a true elf, and touched her neck. “Be at ease,” he told the druid, looking around at the bodies littering the ground. “She lives. Perhaps the others do, as well.” When the druid began inspecting the bodies, Kaiyr let out a silent sigh, relieved that destroying the dragon had lifted the curse and had apparently left these townsfolk alive—if this woman was any indicator of the rest of Andorra. He looked over at Caineye, who nodded.

“This one’s alive, too.” Vinto had also begun sniffing bodies, and all those who bore no fatal wounds were merely unconscious from the release of the curse.

Kaiyr returned to the first woman he had examined, and he offered her his hand. “My lady, please rise and help me and my companions help your town,” he said.

She sat up and didn’t even notice the hand, looking around in a daze. “Wh-what’s going on? What am I doing out here?” she asked, her voice uncertain and rising toward panic.

“Please, my lady, calm yourself. I know little more of the situation than you do. However, I do know that the danger has passed. I need you to help me find and gather everyone together. If you have a coronal or a council, their presence is of utmost importance, as are those of any elders.” He gave her a steadying gaze, and finally, she looked him in the eye. The blademaster’s eyes were azure pools of confidence and security, and in them, the woman found the means to calm herself.

“You are… a blademaster,” she said, and Kaiyr nodded. She took a steadying breath and accepted his hand. “I’ll do everything I can.”

“Excellent,” Kaiyr said. “You may call me Kaiyr. Please, find any of the town’s leaders that you can and bring them here.”

She nodded then glanced around. “What happened to Andorra?”

Kaiyr just shook his head. “It is a long story, and I do not know the whole of it, my lady. My companions and I will help everyone learn as much as they can of the situation when all are gathered.” She accepted his explanation for now and scurried off. “Now,” the blademaster muttered, looking around, “where is Master Wild?”

*

Wild counted the coins in the purses he had lifted from the many unconscious elves scattered around Andorra. Perhaps it was because the elves had all been affected by the same curse and had had little need for currency, but whatever the case, he had not found much in the way of coin on these people. Even the soldiers had had mundane equipment, and the pieces that would have been worth selling were too large and obvious for the halfling rogue to lift from them.

So, he wandered down the streets, flipping one of his few pilfered coins and feeling as though he had forgotten something important. But that didn’t concern him too much. Of much greater interest was the fact that everyone in Andorra had seemingly fallen into a deep slumber after he had killed that dragon with a quarrel to its eye.

Ah, that was it. He had forgotten to run back to Kaiyr and Caineye. But he was already too far away to go back and make much of a difference, anyway. They would probably already be in the town, trying to figure out what had happened.

After a few more minutes of walking and palming small amounts of wealth from the unconscious elves, Wild happened across one who was much more finely dressed than the others. “Say, now,” he said to himself, rubbing his hands and enjoying the sensation of his rings bumping into each other, “what have we here?”

An older gentleman lay on the ground. He was breathing, which was a good sign, Wild supposed. The first thing to go, of course, was the lone ring on the elf’s finger. It had quite the interesting symbol on it, and Wild immediately pocketed the item, intending to wear it as soon as the elder accepted the loss. Of more interest were his robes, which were of a fine silk, even finer than that from which Kaiyr had made his robes…

*

I looked at Matt incredulously. “Are you seriously going to rob him naked?” I asked. Dingo and Xavier chuckled. Matt just grinned.

“Well, yeah. I mean, Dingo says these robes are probably worth a couple thousand gold on the market. Why not?”

I gave him my best unimpressed look. “Besides the obvious, isn’t it more than a little conspicuous?”

Matt thought about it for a minute, then shook his head. “Yeah, you’re right. Besides, Wild’s mostly curious, not mean and greedy. Well, except when it comes to rings,” he amended at a look from all of us.

*

“Oh, my,” groaned the elderly elf, startling Wild, who straightened and whistled innocently. “What have I been doing?” He blinked and glanced around. “Oh, small one. Did you help me when I fell?”

Wild blinked at a nonexistent audience, then looked back at the man. “Sure,” he accepted the credit. “I sure did.” He offered his hand even though it wouldn’t be of much use to the taller elf.

“Why, thank you, small lord. Who might you be?” The elder took Wild’s hand and got himself started on his way to his feet. After several long and painful heartbeats, he straightened and dusted off his extravagant robes.

“You can call me Wild,” the halfling replied, wincing when several of the elf’s joints cracked audibly. “As for what you’ve been doing… well, it’s a long story. Why don’t I take you back to my friends, and we can help get things fixed up around here. And who are you?”

The elf smiled down at his little benefactor. “I am Maran. I am one of Andorra’s elders. It seems that some great event has transpired here.”

“You… got that right,” Wild said, cocking his head. “Oh, and don’t worry about most of the people we’re going to see along the way. They were all knocked out, just like you were.”

Maran accepted Wild’s explanation easily enough. In fact, as the two made their way back to the town’s entrance, they met a number of confused townsfolk rousing from their oblivion. The elder paused to help each one to his or her feet and then added them to a growing entourage.

Kaiyr glanced up as Wild approached, leading a small contingent of dazed elves. “Ah, Master Wild,” he said, casting his gaze over the group. “Excellent work in bringing these people to us. I do wish you had informed us of this development.” He gave the halfling a stern but fleeting look before nodding appreciatively.

The elder stepped forward. “Greetings, Blademaster. I am Maran, elder of Andorra. I… know not what has happened to our fair town, but I anticipate we will learn about the events here in due time.”

“You shall,” Kaiyr promised him. “However, I fear that some of your people will not make joyous returns and reunions this day.” He looked up at the sudden approach of one of the Terth’Kaftineya. The creature moved with urgent speed and skidded to a halt before Caineye. Kaiyr glanced around while the two held a brief, whispered conversation. Neither it nor any of the elves seemed too concerned by each other’s presence; rather, Maran excused himself to go and speak with the wolf-like being.

Caineye hustled over to Kaiyr and Wild a moment later. “We have to go,” he told them.

“Why? What’s going on?” Wild wanted to know.

Caineye glanced down one of the forest paths that served as roads in Andorra. “One of Kathir’s lieutenants just told me of a woman nailed to a wooden cross.” He hesitated for a moment, taking a breath. “By his description, I believe it’s Astra.”

Kaiyr’s cobalt eyes widened. “I agree. We must go.” With that, he took off down the street, his dark blue and black robes flowing around him. Wild and Caineye shared a knowing glance before pursuing the elf.

With his greater speed from constant training, Kaiyr arrived first, running into the center of a small ring of Terth’Kaftineya who watched helplessly as Astra, whom Kaiyr immediately recognized, slowly dripped blood from dozens of wounds. Each trail of blood leaked from around one of many thick, iron nails driven cruelly into her sun-tanned flesh. Her clothing, what little of it was left, hung from her body only by dried blood.

“We tried to get her down,” whined one of the Terth’Kaftineya as Caineye and Wild sprinted into their midst, but none of them took heed of the creature’s words.

“By the gods,” Caineye whispered, his face a mask of horror as he bore witness to the work of whatever enemies Astra had made. He looked at the blademaster and stared in shock at the expression on the elf’s features.

Kaiyr’s emotions were a roiling war between surprise and grief, uncertainty and anger. His brow, furrowed into a deep scowl, twitched with hot anger while tears of frustration ran from the corner of his eye. But what frightened the druid most was when all those things vanished, replaced with cold wrath that was dammed only by a faint glimmer of gentle caring and admiration in his eye as he looked at Astra.

After an eternity that spanned only a few indecisive breaths, Kaiyr stepped forward, casting about for any kind of woodcutting tool. “Let us cut her down,” he intoned with a chilling tranquility. “I have the means to tend her as we remove her from this cross.”

Wild joined the blademaster, pulling a small hacksaw from his satchel and handing it to Kaiyr. “Looking for one of these?”

Kaiyr accepted the saw and nodded his thanks. Working together, all three of them managed to ease the cross, with Astra, to the ground, whereupon they carefully pried the nails from the unconscious nymph’s body. Kaiyr constantly drained power from his healing wand, sealing the wounds as best he could while Caineye extracted the nails.

“Iron,” muttered the druid as he worked. “What bastards. I’m surprised—in a good way—that she hasn’t died from poisoning yet. Iron is deadly to fey such as nymphs, you know.”

When the last nail had been removed, Kaiyr tenderly lifted the woman into his arms, and together they solemnly walked back to the Unicorn and to the rooms they had rented there while the elves had been under the curse.

After cleaning Astra’s blood from her skin and dressing her in his spare robes, Kaiyr breathed a sigh of—he wasn’t sure what kind of sigh it was. Relief, yes. Exasperation at their enemies, also yes. Exhaustion, most definitely. At length, he turned wearily to Wild and Caineye. “I must speak with the townsfolk. As much as I would like to stay by Lady Astra’s side and see that she recovers and remains safe, I must see that the townsfolk regain their bearings. I suspect few, if any of them, will have any recollection of their time under the curse.”

Caineye stood from his chair after stifling a large yawn. “I’ll come, too. I can leave Vinto here to guard Astra.”

“Let’s go,” Wild agreed, hopping down from his perch on a small desk. They filed out as Vinto turned around twice and settled down on the floor in front of Astra’s bed, facing the door.

Outside, the group tended to the people of Andorra. Possibly because one of their saviors was a blademaster and partly because the elders galvanized the people, the elves of Andorra had mostly set aside their questions and gotten nearly the entire town gathered. After the toll the curse and battles with the Terth’Kaftineya during that time had taken on the population, there were only several hundred elves gathered near the palisade’s gate. Some of the elves were inspecting the palisade; earlier they had been wondering how it had seemingly sprung up overnight, and after some explanation, it was clear that no one had any memory of their time under the effect of the curse that had transfigured the town.

Kaiyr had a difficult moment with one woman who demanded to know what had happened to her husband. Despite the blademaster’s best efforts to calm her and explain that he had no way of knowing whether the man was alive and well, he eventually realized that he did indeed know the man. She described her husband to Kaiyr, and he had to tell her the truth: that her husband no longer lived. After all, he had died at Kaiyr’s own hands that very night, in the room housing Ministriel’s shield and bracers.

So, it was with a heavy heart that he turned around only to be faced with another problem.

“Excuse me,” said another woman, standing right in front of him.