Son of the Hero

18 – Doors

I knew that it wasn't that simple-it couldn't be-but I was so astonished by Annick's reaction that I couldn't correct her mistake just then. Maybe the way I faced the elflord contributed to his decision to pull back from Arrowroot, but I couldn't be the main reason. Xayber and I hadn't come to our main event yet. I wasn't looking forward to that. No, something else must have convinced the elflord to call off the siege. Even if he thought I was a hotshot elf warrior out to make life difficult for him, Xayber had a bunch of elf warriors in the attacking force. This had to be Parthet's victory. His message must have reached the Elfking and started something in Fairy, behind Xayber.

Soldiers finally came through from Basil. Maybe the barn hadn't burned down first, but that was only because somebody had blown out the match. It took time to sort out the confusion in Arrowroot. Resler got patrols out to check on the town's residents, to make sure that the elflord's army was really gone, and to see to the dead that had been left behind. I went to Basil to check on Parthet. He was in bed, propped up, awake and eating. Mother was confident that he would recover.

"It'll take time, though," she told me in the hallway outside his room. "At his age, he can't spring back the way he once would have."

"Do what you can," I said. "We're going to need his magic when we meet the Etevar. He's certain to have his wizard along."

"I don't know." Mother shook her head doubtfully. "Three days? He may need that many weeks."

"We don't have weeks. Unless there's another qualified wizard lurking around that I don't know about."

"There isn't. Uncle has never trained an apprentice."

"Well, one thing anyway. You can be my link to open the new doorways. I'll set up one in Arrowroot, pop over to Coriander, and set one up there-with a little luck, maybe the elflord has abandoned that siege too-then come back here to start my ride to Thyme." Mother nodded. I stared at her for a moment. Our roles had changed drastically since I arrived in Varay, and I was just becoming aware of that. "You can handle a passage when we transfer the troops too, I guess."

"I might as well, since I'll be there to open them."

"Yeah. I don't want to try it solo if I can avoid it. But once the army comes through, we have to have Uncle Parthet." There wasn't the slightest doubt in my mind of that.

"I'll do what I can."

There wasn't time for much more. I wasn't even sure that I would have time to get the doorways set up and make the ride east before the Etevar's army crossed the border. Mother and I set up schedules for when I'd want somebody at the new doorways. We couldn't synchronize watches or get on the telephone, or anything like that. We would try just before sunset the next day, in case I managed to get to Thyme that fast-though Mother and I both knew that it would take Kentucky Derby racing the whole distance to make it-and then the morning after that, beginning at first light and continuing for as long as it took. I picked up one of the pouches of sea-silver and stepped back to Arrowroot. Annick was waiting for me.^v

"How's your uncle?" she asked.

"Eating. He'll recover. Where's your uncle?"

"The last I saw, he was in the great hall, trying to organize a meal."

He was still there. I interrupted his work for my own. "I'm going to open new passages, one from here and one from Coriander. Then I'm going to ride to a place just this side of Castle Thyme to put the other ends of the passages. When I've got them open, we'll bring through every soldier we can to meet the Etevar."

Resler started to nod but checked his head in mid-gesture. "Just what do you mean, 'every soldier we can'? How many men do you figure to leave to guard my castle and town?"

I had never really gotten down to thinking about those details, but I hesitated for only an instant. "We don't leave a single soldier behind. This has to be all or nothing. If we don't stop the Etevar, the elflord is his headache. If we do stop him, we can ferry your men back here as quickly as we move them out." Resler nodded, but with obvious reluctance. "I'll put this end of the passage at ground level, through an outside door so we can transport horses." For a moment, I thought that Resler was going to demand confirmation of my orders by the king, but he didn't.

"The northwest tower might be best then," he said. "It's nearest the mews. You open the way. We'll be ready."

I grinned. The hoopla of being Hero had some benefits. Resler was plainly unsatisfied with my decisions, but he wasn't going to argue. "There is that problem yet," I admitted. "I've got to get cracking."

"So do I," Resler said. "I'll see you in a couple of days." His face was grim as he nodded and walked off. He did have a lot of work to do before he could be ready to move his garrison out. There were people missing from his town, though most of the locals were okay now that they were awake again-just scared. Food had to be found, which meant hunting parties. And there was a siege tower to dismantle.

"I'll show you the door he means," Annick said after Resler was gone. She hadn't said a word to her uncle. She had held back as if she didn't even want him to notice that she was around.

"I thought you'd want to get out and join the hunt for stragglers," I said, but not harshly-carefully, not harshly.

"No. I'm sticking close to you until this is over. You've hurt the elflord more in a couple of weeks than I have in a lifetime."

"And one of these days the elflord will do whatever it takes to even the score," I said. I didn't care much for this new Hero worship. In some ways, I preferred the old bloodthirsty, rebellious Annick. Especially since I knew how misplaced her awe was. When the letdown came, she would be more bitter than ever. And there would be a letdown. Few of the Heroes in the vault below Castle Basil had died of old age.

The sea-silver seemed alive and active, animal rather than plant, when I pulled the first strand from the water bag. When the silver completed a circuit between my rings accidentally, I felt an itchy tingle in both hands. I got to an end of the strand and applied it to the bottom corner of the doorjamb. The silver grabbed at the stone the way iron filings grab a magnet. I was able to stretch the weed in place as fast as I could slide my hands along the jamb. By the time I got halfway up the first side, the silver seemed to be leaping ahead, racing to attach itself, leeching to the stone. The first strand reached up the side and across the top. A second completed the circuit. When I was done, I couldn't even make out the joins between the two strands, even though I knew precisely where they were.

"Stand inside the tower, behind me," I told Annick. I didn't want any avoidable distractions while I finished my work.

I stood in the doorway the way Parthet had told me to and reached out to touch the tracing on either side with my rings, igniting that soft tingling again. I stared out at the courtyard, not focusing on anything in particular, simply trying to set the entire scene firmly in mind, what I would see from the other end of the passage. People crossed the courtyard. Some turned to look at me, others made a point of looking away. I tuned them all out, as best I could. I didn't know how much effort I had to put into this memorization for the magic to work, but I couldn't afford to come up short after making an insane marathon ride across nearly half the kingdom. Sure, I hoped to have either Mother or Parthet on this end when I opened the way, but I didn't dare count on that absolutely. I had to be ready to try the job single-handed if it came to that. And if my first shot failed, I wouldn't have time to ride back to make a second attempt. I scanned the lower parts of the curtain wall to my left, the keep directly across the courtyard, the pavement stretching away from the door. I stood there and soaked in the view until I could close my eyes and see it all almost as vividly as with my eyes open before I took my hands from the tracing and did a lot of blinking.

"That's one," I told Annick as I bent over to pick up the water bag with its sea-silver. "Now for Coriander."

Baron Dieth was almost bubbling over with excitement when I arrived. Xayber's army had simply packed up and left. "They just melted back into the forest," was how Dieth put it. He had been in no hurry to order a pursuit-a wise decision as far as I was concerned. The elflord's soldiers had taken a few villagers with them, presumably as slaves, but most of the local peasants had been safe inside the castle, so losses weren't as serious as they might have been. I told Dieth what we were going to do, in more detail than before. He nodded and suggested a suitable doorway. Annick watched while I lined the doorway and did my memorizing. Then we returned to Basil.

Parthet was sitting at a small table in his bedroom with a platter of food and a pitcher of beer-and he was making them disappear the old-fashioned way, without magic.

"You did a bang-up job at Arrowroot, lad," Parthet said, without slowing down his intake. "If you hadn't come along, I think the elflord would have kept me hanging there until I shriveled up and blew away." His voice sounded a lot stronger, he seemed to be in good spirits, and he didn't even appear to be nearly as stooped over as he had been before. His encounter with the elflord seemed to have actually done him some good.

"I still don't understand all of it, but we can puzzle it out later if we have to," Parthet said. "Don't waste time worrying about me, lad. You get yourself over to Thyme and set up the doorways. I'll be ready to do my bit on this end." He stopped eating long enough to take off his glasses and wave them at me. "You know, these are really marvelous. I'm seeing things I haven't seen in a thousand years."

I smiled. It was a tremendous relief knowing that Parthet was recovering, and not just because I wanted him beside me when we faced the Etevar's army. I told him exactly where I had put both new doorways and where I would put the ones in the east, and then I left him to his meal.

Next I had to face what almost became a mutiny among my "entourage" when I told them that I was going to make the long ride east alone.

"Every extra rider will slow me down that much more, and we don't have any hours to spare if we're going to get our army in place before the Etevar marches into Varay," I told them.

I couldn't see pulling a ride that might turn out like the one in The Three Musketeers with everyone falling by the wayside in one trap after another, leaving only the hero (small h, please) to finish the ride and quest. My promise that they could be the first ones through the doorways didn't help much, but there was a limit to how far they would press the argument. I was the Hero of Varay, after all. The only person who could overrule me was the king, and none of my people thought enough of their chances to make that appeal.

Then there was Annick. She waited until we were alone.

"I'm going with you no matter how many high-and-mighty pronouncements you make," she informed me, and then she made her arguments in a hurry, before I could blow my stack and order her locked in a dungeon or something-and I didn't even know if Castle Basil had a dungeon.

"You try making this crazy ride alone and you're liable to lose the whole kingdom," she shouted-right in my face. "You're going to ride day and night, you said, racing as fast as you can to beat the Etevar. Why, if it wasn't for that number you're swilling, you couldn't even stay upright that long. And what happens if your horse stumbles or steps in a hole? You're in the middle of nowhere without a ride. You won't be able to travel far or fast on foot with that busted rib and that hole in your back, no matter how much painkiller you drink. By the time you find yourself another horse and finish your ride, it's too late. The Dorthini army is inside Varay. They've destroyed the men already waiting for them and it's too late to get the rest of our soldiers in front of them. Ride at night? You're blind in the dark. I'm not. You'll travel faster with me, not slower. And if one horse is injured, we still have a second."

My first reaction was anger. With Annick, it had to be anger. But I couldn't refute her arguments and I wasn't stupid enough to let my anger get in the way. I could take a second horse, switch back and forth to spread the burden, but handling two horses might slow me too. I had never tried riding one horse and leading a second. My back? Who could say what a day and a half, almost two full days, of hard riding would do to it? And Annick was certainly right about night vision. She did have that useful bit of elvish heredity. I didn't even sputter. I kept my mouth shut until the anger faded.

"Then let's eat and get out of here," I said.

Pushing ourselves and our horses for all we were worth, I thought that we might reach that cottage in the orchard near Castle Thyme in thirty hours. Since it was well past noon when we left Basil, that meant sunset the next night, or later. Earlier would be better, but earlier was unlikely, despite the arrangements I had made for either Mother or Parthet to be ready to open the passages before dark. I needed light to complete the passages, and if there wasn't enough light to work by when we arrived, I might have to wait until the next morning when I would have Parthet or Mother waiting to help with the final connections again. I didn't know if torchlight or a fire in the cottage's fireplace would be enough for me to do the job alone. The hard part of the magic was already done, I hoped. With someone on the other end, maybe firelight would be enough. Maybe.

Most of the ride was a blur. Annick and I concentrated on our horses, willing them to greater speed, and we watched the road for holes or rocks that might twist a horse's foot and lame it. I was swimming in sweat within an hour and developed a monumental headache from the futile mental effort. I kept putting off taking more pain-killer as long as I could. It was so powerful that I thought it might easily be addictive. I didn't want to take any more of a chance on that than I absolutely had to. Even when I did take a sip, it didn't completely erase the pains of riding or of my mending injuries.

Fields and forest passed on either side of us. Annick and I pushed our animals to their limits, almost beyond reason, stopping only when it was absolutely essential and resting for no more than a few minutes at a time when we did. My headache stretched down my spine and linked up with the pain in my back early in the ride. Then those pains connected themselves to the cramps in my legs and the throbbing of a butt too long in the saddle. While it was light out, Annick and I rode side by side, or I rode just in front of her when the road narrowed. Once dusk started to congeal into night, Annick took the lead and I concentrated on keeping my horse, Gold, close to hers, just a little behind and to the side so we wouldn't collide if Annick had to stop suddenly.

We rode through the village of Nushur in the dark. I toyed with the idea of stopping for fresh horses, but decided against it. We probably wouldn't have found very good animals, and waking the place for remounts would have cost us too much time. At least, I was afraid that it would. So we rode on through the night, into morning and a sun that stabbed deeply into our sleepless eyes.

Our horses started stumbling on dust and air. Their pace fell way off. Their chests heaved as they fought for air, sweating, trying to keep up with our demands. Long before noon, it was obvious that we had to give our animals at least a couple of hours to recuperate. If we didn't, Annick and I would both be walking before long. But we pressed on, "a little farther, a little farther," until we nearly waited too long. We finally pulled up along a decent little stream and a grassy bank that allowed us to get away from the road. The animals would have to wait to drink, but they could rest and graze while they were cooling off.

When I dismounted, I could scarcely stand. My knees were jelly. The rest of me felt as if I'd been repeatedly bashed with baseball bats-the kind that players tamper with to give them more action. I tried to take a few steps to work out the kinks, but I could hardly move. My back and ribs almost escaped notice in the general achiness. I took a sip of the painkiller anyway. Annick seemed to have almost as much trouble moving as I did, so maybe the rib was pretty far along in its mending. As soon as we could move around with some ease, we drank our fill of cool water from the stream and refilled our drinking skins.

"I'm going to soak off some of the sweat and dirt," Annick said. It sounded like a good idea, but I wasn't prepared for the casual way she stripped. The tunic came over her head. She dropped her trousers and stepped out of soft boots. That was all she was wearing. She draped her clothes over a branch, "to let the wind blow some of the stink out of the them," she said when she turned to me.

Despite the way I felt about Annick, seeing her naked roused me quickly, fully. Her skin was milky white from forehead to toes. Against that almost albino pallor, her nipples looked purple, twin wine-colored birthmarks. Her pubic hair was as blond and fine as the hair on her head, and so sparse that it scarcely blurred the skin beneath it. When she moved, the muscles in her arms and legs flexed smoothly, strength without bulges. She stepped down into the water and moved away from shore, sinking until only her head showed. Then she turned toward me again.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"I'm coming," I stuttered, and I almost made a bad pun of it. I took off everything but my jockey shorts and turned away from Annick when I got that far. I didn't want to show her how she affected me.

The water was cool, but not cool enough to deflate me. I went under and swam a few strokes downstream, then back. We swam and washed for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, letting the water clean and relax us. As much as possible, I avoided looking at Annick, but that didn't help much. The look I'd had before was imprinted as deeply in my mind as the doorways I had prepared at Arrowroot and Coriander. I was still in the water when Annick climbed out-slowly, temptingly, her backside wiggling gently. I ducked underwater again as she cleared the top of the bank and stayed down nearly a full minute before I got out.

"I never expected you to be bashful," Annick said when I got to the top of the bank and started stripping loose water from my skin. "You're going to be mighty uncomfortable riding with wet drawers."

"We don't have time for anything but bashful," I said, trying to concentrate on getting rid of water. "Aren't you afraid you'll burn?" She sprawled on her back in a sunny patch of grass, arms and legs stretched out-like a snow angel. But there was no snow and she was certainly no angel.

"I never burn," she said. I shook my head. With skin that pale, a candle ought to pop freckles out on her, but she didn't have a single freckle visible. More of her elvish heritage, I assumed.

I didn't have to worry about the misery of riding with wet shorts, though. I had a change of socks and underwear left in my pack. I changed, keeping my horse between Annick and me. When I had everything but my shirt on, I took both horses to the stream for their drinks. Annick flipped over to dry her back in the sun. She spread her hair out to the side. Not a single freckle anywhere.

I stayed with the horses while they drank and grazed a little more. They had every right to expect a long holiday from work, but the work wouldn't be done until we got to that orchard and cottage, set up the doors, and pulled the army through from Arrowroot and Coriander. If then. When I finally led the horses away from the stream, Annick was dressed. I had her pull the old, wet bandage off my back. When she said that the wound was scabbed over nicely, I decided not to bother having her put another gauze patch over it.

Annick ran a hand up and down my spine, and when I spun around to face her, she gave me a teasing little smile that added a painful twist to my groin. I almost told her about groupies. Almost. Another time, another place, I might want to take advantage. After all, you don't have to be completely pure at heart to be a Hero.

By midafternoon, it was obvious that we weren't going to reach the cottage before dark. Even with the rest, our horses couldn't maintain anything like their full speed. We had to pace them as best we could, just to keep them moving at all. A little before sunset, we turned off the road and started moving cross-country, the way Parthet, Lesh, Timon, and I had the first time out. I wasn't completely certain about this part of the route, but it seemed safer than parading right past Castle Thyme. I described what I remembered of the route to Annick, since she would soon be picking our path.

We were close to the orchard-near the end of the low hills-when we stumbled across the army that Baron Kardeen had sent on ahead by road. Army-a few hundred men who were waiting for the promised reinforcements. They were glad to see us, but they would have been happier to see a lot more.

"There are Dorthini patrols everywhere between here and the border," the commander, Sir Hambert, said.

"Any sign of the main Dorthini force yet?" I asked.

"The last scouts who made it back said that they couldn't reach Castle Thyme before noon tomorrow-probably a lot later."

I closed my eyes in relief for a moment. We had made it in time. If it mattered. After the long ride I couldn't help but think that it might still come down to simply bringing more people through to be mowed down by the Etevar's army. I didn't share my gloomy misgivings, though.

"Be ready to move up right after dawn," I told Sir Hambert. "I'll open the passages then and we'll bring the rest of the army through." I asked about the orchard and cottage, if Dorthinis were using the place.

"Not that I know of," Hambert said. "None of my scouts has reported any activity around there."

"How many Dorthinis in the main force?" I asked.

Hambert hesitated. "I don't trust the numbers my scouts give me," he said. "They've reported as many as five thousand. I hope that's an exaggeration. My own guess would be half that." I tried to tot up the rough numbers I had. Even if the Etevar had only twenty-five hundred men, he would still outnumber us nearly two to one. And he had Castle Thyme. That might be worth another thousand soldiers if he used the advantage wisely. I didn't count on him to be stupid.

"Annick and I will go on to the cottage tonight," I told Hambert. "Bring your men up at dawn."

"Two miles, that way." Hambert pointed just north of east.

Annick led the way. We rode slowly, giving our horses a chance to cool down. Since darkness had already fallen, we had all night to wait.

"We'll have to wait for dawn," I told Annick. "With Dorthini patrols around, we can't show a fire for me to try to finish the passages tonight."

"That's still plenty of time, isn't it?"

"If those scouts were right about how far off the Dorthinis are."

Riding at a slow walk gave my aches a chance to make themselves felt again, and when I took a nip of painkiller-the flask was getting low-exhaustion flowed over me. Off and on, I had dozed a little in the saddle coming east, but you can't get much rest that way. I looked forward to some real sleep, but at the same time I was afraid that Annick and I might both oversleep, snore on through the morning while the Etevar got closer and our men fretted at the delay. I mentioned that worry to Annick.

"I wake at the first hint of dawn, no matter what," she said, waving her hand in a dismissing gesture. "It never fails."

I hoped that she was right, even though part of my mind was trying to remind the rest that we would have Sir Hambert and his men coming up to the cottage at dawn, that they would certainly wake us, but when you're as tired as I was then, irrational fears seem saner than logical thought. I even got to the point of Perhaps my danger sense will keep me from oversleeping with the enemy so close, with the nervous tag but it might not wake me until the cottage is surrounded.

We reached the orchard and dismounted to lead our horses the last stretch. They were near the end of their endurance. Even Gold seemed hard put to keep up with my own slow walk. There were no lights on in the cottage, no sign of people or horses already there, but we checked the cottage and orchard out thoroughly before we put our horses in the tiny attached stable, unsaddled them, and brought in water and hay for them. Then we carried our stuff-and the sea-silver-into the cottage.

There was no real bed, just the hard bench where my father's body had been. I had no intention of sleeping there. Ghosts had been in my mind all too much lately. I got my thermal blanket and my saddle and found a spot on the floor where I thought the morning sun would get me in the face, just in case. The night was a trifle chilly after the heat and sweat of the long ride. I shucked my weapons and boots and settled myself in, wrapping the blanket around me., I had my elf sword close-and my own regular sword. I took a couple of deep breaths and started to drift off, doing a fairly good job of not thinking about Annick and the way she had looked naked earlier. I was much too tired to let my mind cook over her.

I thought.

I yawned, relaxed, sliding down the incline. Sleep was waiting to jump all over me for a change. There would be none of the long tossing and turning that I usually have to wade through to reach slumber. I could hear Annick's soft movements, but they didn't bother me-until I sensed that she was very close.

When I opened my eyes, Annick was kneeling right over me. There was enough dim light filtering in to let me see milky white skin as she came down and kissed me. Her hair slid forward off her shoulders and covered my face. Then she was in the blanket with me, pressing her body against mine.

Tired as I was, I couldn't ignore her. I could feel both our hearts beating, not in time. Between us, we got my clothes off. Annick had stripped before she came down on me. Passion replaced exhaustion, and we went at each other as though it were a contest, a joust-bruising kisses, frenzied groping, inarticulate grunts and moans. We seemed to be all over the cottage, rolling around, bumping into things, rolling back. Annick eventually straddled me and reached down to join us. Locked together, we continued to roll around the floor like wrestlers. The build-up was maddening, the climax explosive. I felt almost as drained as I was after the duel with the elflord. My back didn't waste much time reminding me that it wasn't completely healed yet, but even that wasn't enough to slow us down.

Afterward, when I fell asleep, Annick was half on top of me yet-not on my injured side luckily. She had collapsed, as spent as I was, but still holding on. Neither of us could have found the strength for an encore.