“Lark!” Tiras shouted, “Where are you?”
I started to climb over bodies toward his voice.
Here. I am here.
I felt Shindoh’s red fear streaking toward me, even as I found my feet and instinctively stretched out my arm. Then the king was there, swinging me up behind him, no armor, no helmet, no mail or gloves. Only a sword, which he brandished in his left hand, and a spiked flail which he swung with his right. We had been caught completely unaware. I wrapped my arms around his waist and gripped Shindoh’s flanks between my knees, and the battle waged on.
Among the Volgar birdmen were those who seemed unaffected by my spells, those who dove and flew and carried men away, impervious to the susceptibility of their brothers. But the greater number tumbled from the sky when I wielded my words. Those who survived the fall turned on each other as I’d instructed them to do. Our vulnerability became superiority, even as Jeru’s warriors fought off the surprise attack.
When a fresh wave of birdmen descended, I sent up spells to bring them down, and as dawn’s timid light crept over the shivering trees, the Volgar who remained were dead or dying.
I laid my weary head on Tiras’s back, welcoming the end of the second conflict, refusing to entertain the thought of more. His back bowed as if he too had reached his limit, and a tremor shook him, making me tighten my grip around his waist. His breath hissed, and his hand clamped down on my arm, repositioning it.
You’re wounded.
“Not seriously. I need to change.”
I pulled at his tunic and he hissed again, the wool tugging at his wound. His flesh was warm and sticky beneath my hands, and he shivered again.
“Leave it, woman. You’re spent,” Tiras commanded, but I pressed my palms to the long gash across his left side. Blood spilled over my hands and he cursed.
All the ills, the dirt and grime
Flee this wound and quicken time.
Gaping flesh and broken skin
Mend together, whole again.
Tiras sighed and relaxed, lifting his hand to cover mine, thanking me without speaking. I pictured his flesh repairing itself, the torn skin uncurling and binding together again.
Heal the wound beneath my hand, ease the pain inside this man.
It wasn’t a well-crafted spell, but it was all I could conjure, and I pressed the words into his abdomen through the tips of my fingers, giving him the last of my strength.
My eyes were heavy, and my awareness hung on by the thinnest of threads, but I thought I heard him mutter.
“I think I will keep you.”
When I awoke again, darkness had fallen, or maybe it had simply come and gone and come again. The sounds of revelry and laughter trickled into my tent, accompanied by the smell of meat and men, and all of it made my stomach turn. When I’d lost consciousness, I’d been surrounded by broken bodies and torn flesh, and the scent was still clinging to me.
I was warm, comfortable even, though I still wore the tunic and breeches the king had insisted I wear into battle. The shirt of mail was gone, along with the ill-fitting boots, and my hair was loose around my head. Tiras was gone too, though there were signs of him everywhere. The bed of piled furs covered in silk and the size of the tent, along with the richly appointed simplicity of my surroundings left little doubt that he had done as he vowed he would. He’d kept me near. I sat up slowly and stretched my body experimentally. I was among the living, but my heart ached, and I wanted to weep.
The smell of boar on a spit and something earthy, like yeasty bread, tickled my nose once more, and my stomach growled even as it revolted. I was filthy and thirsty and in desperate need of a chamber pot. I crawled from the corner pallet where I’d been laid, a simple coverlet spread over me, and flinched when the flap of the tent rustled and someone entered.
I would have felt Boojohni before I saw him had I not been so discombobulated. He was singing a little tune beneath his breath, and his beard was braided neatly with a little bow at the tip, as if he’d spent time being cared for and primped by nimble fingers. There was celebration in his step, and he smiled widely when he saw that I was awake.
“Ye slept so long! King Tiras told me ye saved everyone.” He whispered the last part, and his eyes darted right and left as if he worried someone might hear. He should. No one but Tiras and Kjell and maybe, to some extent, Boojohni knew what part I had played. I was the king’s pet. I’d heard the men refer to me that way.
I need to wash. I pulled on the boots near my pallet, ignoring Boojohni’s congratulations.
Boojohni tilted his head and looked at me with pursed lips.
“Aren’t ye glad, Bird?
I can’t be glad when there is so much death. I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to hurt animals, or beasts, or even birdmen.
“But sometimes we must,” he said softly.
I nodded, but I had a hard time looking him in the eye. I fumbled in my satchel and pulled out a gown, silky and smooth, and shook it out. It was too fine for the circumstances in which I found myself, but it would feel good against my skin once I was clean. Boojohni followed my lead, grabbing up a wedge of soap, a blanket, and a cloth for drying, and folding it all into a pouch that he balanced on his head. He led me from the king’s tent and past the smaller shelters and groups of men toward the stream on the edge of camp.
Revelry abounded. There was nothing more raucous than men who’d faced death and lived to see another day. Men who’d killed to keep slaughter from their lands, men who still had gore on their weapons and blood on their clothes. They drank and laughed, and some crept off to be with the small band of women who followed the king’s army whenever they traveled. It was understandable. But I wondered how those women felt embracing men with death on their skin. Maybe they were grateful.