Flight of the Fallen

18 Dreams and Arrows

Linsha. A voice whispered her name over the rustle of the flowing river. She did not hear the voice as much as feel it caress her mind.

Startled, she sat up straighter, for the voice sounded familiar. Her eyes scanned the riverbank to her left and right, but she saw no one in the heavy gloom. This was a night of a dark moon, a night of dense shadows and velvet darkness. The only light came from overhead where the stars glittered in brilliant clusters, freed from the moon that often stole their fragile light. Around her insects hummed in the grass and on the river, a mist was rising from the water, pale and ethereal, reflecting the distant starlight.

Linsha. Wake up, my lovely.

Linsha’s heart skipped a beat and tripped forward in a rapid pulse. Her breath caught in her throat.

A pale figure stood in the middle of the river perhaps ten feet away. It had no solid form. It looked to her like an outline of a person drawn with silver ink. The mist swirled about its feet and rolled upward, defining its limbs and filling out its shape with a spectral glow as pale as starlight. The last to appear was his face, as handsome as she remembered. She fancied she caught the faintest hint of blue in his eyes.

Linsha pitched a rock at him. “For the gods’ sake, am I dreaming you again?”

He watched the rock sail through the area of his chest and shook his head. Is that any way to treat an old friend?

“What do you want now, Ian?” she demanded. “You’re supposed to be dead. Why do you keep coming back? What enigmatic warning are you going to give me this time?”

He laughed, that same roguish rumble of good humor she remembered from Sanction. It seemed another lifetime ago she had loved him—or thought she had.

He held out his arms to her. Come kiss me, Green Eyes.

“Drop dead, Ian.”

Thanks to you, my lovely, I already have.

“Right. So what do you want now? Still want to warn me about some nameless rogue?”

You are in a bad mood. Even in your sleep. Anything to do with that dragon of yours?

Linsha leaned forward, another rock in her hand. “He’s not my dragon,” she snapped.

So you say. He grinned again. I don’t have to tell you to be wary. You already know. Listen to your heart. No, I just came to tell you to wake up. Wake up, Green Eyes. There is trouble coming.

“Wake up!” A real voice, a human voice spoke in her ear. “Linsha, wake up.”

Linsha nearly leaped vertically off the rock she was sitting on. She turned huge eyes to the speaker, snatched his padded jacket, and yanked him closer. “Don’t you ever sneak up on me like that again!”

Sir Hugh calmly put a hand on her wrist and pushed her away. He moved quietly and sat down beside her on the rock.

“Sorry. You were mumbling something. I thought you were dreaming.”

She turned back to look at the river, but the spectral form was no longer there, only the mist that flowed in currents above the water. Had she been dreaming? She didn’t think she’d been asleep. She knew how to sleep sitting up or even standing up when necessary—every active Knight learned that trick, but she’d never fallen asleep on guard duty before. Of course she was still bone-weary from days of work and worry and travel. Perhaps Ian had been only a dream. Yet… she had felt his presence so intensely, just as she had in Sanction those years ago.

“Did you see something on the river when you came?” she asked softly.

He looked at the mist and the shadows and said, “Like what?”

“Nothing. I suppose I was dreaming.” She was not about to explain Ian Durne to Sir Hugh. The young Knight still believed in her. She was not going to shatter that illusion by telling him about her love affair with an assassin from the Knights of Neraka.

But if she had been asleep then, she was very awake now. Awake and vividly aware of the night. She sat up straighter, her senses reaching out around her. Something did not feel right. What had Ian said? Trouble is coming.

Brush rustled somewhere to her left. Gravel crunched softly under a heavy foot. Linsha reacted instinctively. She lunged against Sir Hugh, shoving him off the rock onto the ground. She landed heavily beside him just as a crossbow bolt cracked into the rock where they had been sitting.

Both Knights shouted a warning to the sleeping camp.

The effect was immediate. Another sentry blew a horn. The sleepers in the camp, trained by months of danger, slept fully clothed with their weapons close at hand. The shouts brought them instantly awake and on their feet just as a mob of dark figures charged the camp. Voices rang out in war cries and challenges. Swords clashed in the dark.

More crossbow bolts slammed into the rocks around Linsha and Hugh, then three dark forms barged out of the brush and dashed toward them, swords and bucklers raised for an attack.

“Damn! They’re carrying scimitars!” said Sir Hugh, who only had a light long sword and a padded jacket.

Linsha, who had managed to scrounge a heavy rapier and a brass-hilted poniard before she left Sinking Wells, wasn’t any happier. “Damn,” she muttered. “They’re draconians.”

They leaped to their feet and stood back to back. There was no time to retreat up to the camp or make an offensive move. The draconians were on them in a blink of an eye, screeching and smashing in for a quick kill.

In the dark Linsha could not easily identify what type of draconian they were. They were not skilled fighters. That much was clear, for they got in each other’s way and used their curved scimitars to hack and beat down their opponents. They’d probably stolen the blades and their armor, too. Thankfully two of them were short for draconians, which meant they were probably baaz, the warped, evil perversions of brass dragon eggs. The other was taller and heavier. A bozak perhaps.

“If you kill one, pull your weapon out fast!” she cried to Sir Hugh.

He managed a grunt in reply and fended off another wild swing at his head from the bozak.

The draconians jeered at them and pressed harder. Their scimitars slammed into Linsha’s blades until both her arms ached and quivered from the force of the blows. Her left arm, wounded in the melee with the Tarmaks, flared with pain every time she used the poniard to stop a swing.

Fortunately her rapier was a well-built weapon, strong enough to survive the blow of a scimitar, balanced for speed and slashing cuts, and not too heavy for good point work. Linsha often preferred a good rapier and had trained with one for years. Using all of her skill she forced one opponent to back away and, ducking under another wild blow, she slipped by his arm and rammed the point of her blade into the draconian’s chain mail vest. The sharp point burst through the chain links, slid between his ribs, and pierced the heart.

She yanked the blade out of the body as it toppled over, but she had no time to watch what happened to it. The remaining two draconians pressed their attack harder, and in the dark it was difficult to see, to watch the enemy’s face and muscles and look for the subtle clues that often gave away his next move.

Behind her she heard Sir Hugh gasping as he swung his long sword at the bigger draconian. He sounded tired, and she knew she was wearing down fast. At least they were fighting only two draconians now. She parried a wild thrust and jabbed with her poniard at the creature’s midsection. It snarled and deflected the blow with its buckler.

All at once it paused, its long nose sniffing the air. “You!” The baaz hissed. “You are the one! The woman with the bounty. Vorth! This is the one the Brutes seek!”

The second and larger draconian hissed in glee. Giving his large wings a powerful flap, he leaped up and came crashing down to smash Sir Hugh into the rocky riverbank. Linsha could not look. She had her hands too full to help. The first draconian, seeing steel coins in his mind, switched from trying to kill her to trying to disable her. Her came at her using his buckler like a ram to push past her blades and shove her backwards. She tried to get a point under his guard, but his larger size and weight bore her back. She banged into Sir Hugh behind her, twisted to get out of his way, and tripped over something hard in the dark. Her foot caught on the thing and she fell over it, landing on her right arm and side. Pain ripped up her ankle and through her back. Her elbow hit a rock so hard her entire arm went numb, and her sword fell out of her nerveless fingers. By sheer force of will she kept a grip on the poniard and made her body relax over the uneven lump she realized was the first dead baaz. It was a terrible gamble, but she hoped greed would overcome bloodlust in her attacker.

The draconian hooted with derision. Lurching over her, he grabbed her hair and yanked her head up to see if she was still alive.

As fast as a Tarmak, Linsha pulled back her good arm and rammed the poniard through the joints of the old armor into the draconian’s gut. Hot blood spilled over her hand. The creature screeched and tried to pull away, but the point of the long dagger slid up through a lung and hit an artery. In moments, the baaz’s heart failed.

Although Linsha tried to pull the weapon out of the dying creature, she wasn’t fast enough. It toppled over her, ripping the handle out of her hand, died, and, like every one of its kind, its body promptly turned to stone. Linsha’s weapon became trapped in a petrified statue.

Pinned between the two dead draconians, Linsha struggled to free herself, then fell back panting for air and feeling nauseous from the pain. The stone body that held her down was too heavy for her to move alone. She either needed help or an hour’s worth of patience to wait until the draconians’ bodies crumbled to dust. Frantic for Hugh, she squirmed around to see him. What if he was dead already? But when she finally worked her upper body into a place where she could catch sight of him, she paused, taken with surprise.

Hugh had fought off the bozak’s air attack and had disarmed him. He had lost his own sword as well, and as Linsha watched, the two opponents went after each other with tooth and bare fist. Bozaks were known to be dirty fighters, but she was astonished to see Sir Hugh fought dirty as well—with head, teeth, elbows, fists, knees, and feet. He used moves the trainers never taught Solamnic Knights. Kicking and punching, he slowly drove the draconian away from Linsha and away from the fallen swords.

The bozak looked wildly over his shoulder for help, but there was none. The riverbank was black around them and apparently empty.

In that second of inattention, Sir Hugh slipped a foot under the scimitar, kicked it upward, and caught the grip with his hand. He brought it around in a vicious arc that took the draconian’s head off at the shoulders. The head bounced once and rolled to the water’s edge.

“Get down, Hugh!” Linsha shouted.

The Knight dove for cover behind the rock just as the skin on the bozak began to crumble. Unlike the baaz which turned to stone and eventually disintegrated, dead bozaks swiftly deteriorated into skeletons which a minute later exploded in a hail of shrapnel and bone fragments. Linsha threw an arm over her face just as the dead draconian blew apart. Shards of bone whizzed over her head.

There was a polite smattering of applause from the top of the bank.

Linsha and Hugh looked up to see four figures standing on the bank watching them. Someone had built up the campfire, and it illuminated the watchers from behind in a yellow glow. All four held swords and one carried a loaded crossbow. Linsha sagged back with a groan. In all the rush of battle, she had forgotten about the camp.

“Well done, Sir Hugh!” Falaius called. “I see you have taken care of things down there. Is Linsha injured?”

“I don’t know,” she answered for him. “If someone would help me get this blasted draconian off—”

Mariana sprang lightly down the bank, and with Linsha’s help from underneath and the aid of Sir Hugh’s strong arms, they lifted the heavy stone baaz off Linsha and heaved it aside.

With a grin Sir Hugh pulled Linsha to her feet. As she came upright, she tried to put her weight on both feet and was immediately reminded of her injured ankle. The damaged joint refused to hold her. She gasped and fell forward against Hugh’s chest. His arms automatically went around her, and they clasped each other close. She wondered briefly if she should pull away, then he looked into her eyes and in the same breath they started laughing in relief and in the pleasure of being alive.

Mariana studied them both for a minute in her cool, detached way and rubbed the sweat from her face. “Linsha, go soak your ankle in the cold water for a while until I can attend you. Sir Hugh, stay with her and try to wash some of the blood off so I can see to your injuries.”

“What of the others?” Linsha asked.

“They’re alive. Your warning alerted us in time. Most of our attackers were human and not skilled. Falaius thinks they were just bandits. You had the greater number of draconians.”

“Just lucky I guess,” Sir Hugh said, still holding Linsha and still grinning like a lunatic.

Mariana raised an elegant eyebrow. She had seen this reaction before. People sometimes felt drunk after a mortal battle. “Fine. I have a few other people to attend to, then I’ll be back.” She strode up the hill into the firelight.

Sir Hugh’s head dropped to Linsha’s shoulder. “Is she gone yet?” he groaned. At her reply his whole body seemed to sag into her arms.

By fits and starts and careful hops, Linsha and Hugh worked their way over to a grassy patch by the water’s edge and collapsed side by side.

“By Helm’s sword, Hugh, where did you learn to fight like that?” Linsha said while she pulled off her boot.

He splashed water over his hands and face and pulled off his padded jacket to make a pillow for them both. “The streets of Palanthas,” he replied, stretching out on the grass beside her. “I used to run with a gang before the Knights saved me.” His voice dropped as his energy seemed to be draining away. “Thank you for saving me.”

Linsha sank her ankle in the cold flowing water. She lay back and closed her eyes. “I still owe you, Hugh.”

Her ankle was cold, her entire body hurt, and the grass was chilly beneath her. But the exuberance of relief was gone and in its place flowed unadulterated exhaustion.

“Linsha?”

“Hmmm?”

“Who is Ian?”

“He’s dead, Hugh.”

“Oh.”

The last word was barely a sigh.

Mariana came back half an hour later and found them both asleep in the grass. She propped her torch up between several stones and moved among them to check their condition. Except for the old bruise on her face, Linsha looked well enough. She slept peacefully and barely moved when the half-elf lifted her ankle from the water and shifted her back enough to rest her foot on the land. The ankle looked bruised and a little swollen, but it was not broken, and the cold water had helped. Mariana wrapped it tightly and left her friend to sleep.

For a moment she paused by Hugh’s head and let her gaze dwell on his features. He looked so relaxed in the innocent pose of sleep, so peaceful and boyish. If she had not seen him fight the draconian barehanded, she would not have believed it of this young man. She brushed a hand over his forehead where his light brown hair had stuck to a bloody swelling. He was a well-built man, strong, and handsome enough with the heart of a true Knight. Would he and Linsha ever—?

No, the half-elf corrected herself almost as soon as the thought surfaced. Linsha’s heart belonged to someone else. Of that Mariana was certain. The Rose Knight might not realize it yet, but her love’s eye looked somewhere beyond the men at hand. As for Hugh, Mariana suspected he bore an attraction for her. Looking at him now, asleep, battered, bruised, bleeding in several places, dirty, and sweaty with just a hint of that lunatic smile still on his lips, she decided that was not a displeasing notion. Perhaps in the months ahead when this war was over they could spend time together that didn’t involve fleeing, fighting, and burying the dead. They could find someplace quiet where they could just be together. Until then, Mariana thought with a sigh, they would have to be patient.

Carefully, so as not to disturb him, she examined his limbs and his torso for wounds that needed mending. She found cuts and scraps, a black eye, a bite that would need careful observation, bumps and bruises, and two slashes that needed stitching, one on his forearm and a second on his ribs. He had been very lucky. Using warm water she had brought down from the campfire and a small healer’s kit, she washed the slashes and gently stitched them closed by torchlight. He did not move through either stitching, and she assumed he slept through the whole procedure. But when she finished the last knot on his side, his hand caught hers and pressed her fingers to his lips. She looked down in the dark planes of his face and saw his eyes watching her.

Mariana smiled.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “You’re a woman of many talents.”

She brushed her lips over his forehead. “Sleep now, Hugh. Morning is coming.”

He blinked at her, then his eyes slid closed and he dropped back into sleep, still holding her hand.

Mariana waited a little while before she slid her hand free. She snuffed out the torch in the water, and in the darkness she found the long sword and the rapier on the graveled bank and the poniard resting in a heap of dust. She placed them carefully by her friends’ sides. Satisfied, she sat down on the large rock nearby to keep watch.