Chapter 21 #2
The rimewolf’s snarl grew louder as it gained on him.
He zagged to the left, then whirled and lashed out again with the hammer.
Too slow. The steel-hard plate of the monster’s forehead slammed into his middle, launching him a dozen paces.
A crack and a sickening pop sounded from his torso as he landed and rolled to a stop between the beer garden and the farrier’s tent.
Somehow, he had managed to keep a grip on his ghostwood blade, but his other hand sprawled empty beside him, the hammer lost from sight.
His breath came in an agonised wheeze as he struggled to his feet.
A sudden certainty that these were his last moments settled into him, with the odd effect of dulling his pain.
If it were only for his own sake, he might simply lie there, give up, let the rimewolf’s jaws or the Huntress’s blade trim the thread of his life.
But his life was not his own. Had not been for eight years. In his mind’s eye he saw Siwan, exhausted and afraid, nonetheless smiling at Damon’s antics as she tucked a paper flower into his hair.
The rimewolf, its glamour broken at last by the blows of his hammer, padded closer.
A rumbling growl shook Llewyn’s aching bones.
He took a deep breath—it came with pain—and hauled himself to his feet.
His legs held. He had one more sprint in him, maybe, but if he turned and ran the rimewolf would tear out the back of his neck.
His free arm hugged his aching side while the other brought up his ghostwood blade.
The rimewolf snarled, hunched, readied to lunge.
Behind it, the Huntress emerged from the beer garden.
‘A shame,’ she said, reaching into the folds of her skirt to withdraw a piece of linarite. ‘I was hoping you’d put up a fight, not dash away. But I suppose once a coward starts to run, it’s hard to stop. This will hold you still.’
She cracked the gemstone. Llewyn dived backwards as the ground where he had been standing transformed to sucking mud.
He rolled, hissing as pain raked his injured ribs, then found his feet in the same moment the rimewolf leapt.
He lashed out awkwardly with his ghostwood blade, hoping to knock the monster’s charge aside.
Instead, he only cut a thin furrow on its cheek.
Again, it bowled him over. He heard a sharp snap as he struck the earth, and the ache in his ribs blossomed into agony.
Groaning and dazed, he flailed to find his feet, every moment sending a fresh wash of pain up his flank. Every moment he held on, every breath he took—no matter how it knifed at his broken ribs—bought Siwan a bit more time to get away.
He saw her on the altar stone. ‘Papa … Please …’
That was his purpose, now. The singular focus of his existence. Spend his pain to buy her one more moment, and then another. As many as he could before collapsing.
Using his blade as a cane, he levered himself to his feet. The rimewolf circled, laughter in its eyes and its wounded jowls open wide in a cruel smile. It might have lunged and ripped him apart with little difficulty, as battered as he was. This taunting was odd.
As was, he realised, the Huntress’s insistence that he put on the Grey Lady’s ring.
He had assumed they were after Siwan. They must be.
The Grey Lady would not abide such a threat to her domain—and no matter how far Llewyn took Siwan from the forest, no matter if they fled to the depths of the deserts of Kar, the Grey Lady would always see the raven fiend and what it had become as a threat.
Then why had the Huntress not simply ignored him and gone after her true quarry?
He glanced over his shoulder. The farrier’s forge was only a few paces behind him. Discarded horseshoes lay in a pile, waiting to be cleaned and sold as charms against the fae. If he could get to the far side of that pile …
‘Last chance,’ the Huntress said. She now held a scrap of anatase, ready to be broken and unleash a spirit of flame. ‘Put on the ring, or I start carving you up. If I cauterise the wounds, you might speak to the Lady with only one finger left.’
Galloping hooves sounded. The watch, Llewyn assumed, come to investigate reports of a duel in the festival grounds. Little good they would do against a gwyddien and a rimewolf, unless they came armed with raw iron.
‘Llewyn!’ Afanan’s voice sent an icy shock through him.
She appeared from behind the beer garden, mounted on Midnight, her black palfrey.
The Huntress’s gaze snapped to her, startled, and Llewyn took advantage.
He lumbered, gasping and wincing, towards the farrier’s forge.
The rimewolf snarled and lunged after him, churning the earth.
It was nearly upon him when he turned—screaming as pain shot up and down his side—flattened his ghostwood blade into a broad paddle, and struck at the pile of horseshoes, launching a handful at the beast’s open maw.
The rimewolf’s snarl became a whine as smoke poured from sizzling flesh.
It shook its head, spat, and coughed, trying to dislodge a horseshoe that had hooked around its jowl.
Llewyn wasted no time assessing the damage.
The Huntress walked towards him, her pace steady and determined as the march of time, the anatase held tight between her fingers.
Afanan reined in beside him. With a flourish, she produced an opal and crushed it. A howl of conjured wind whirled out from her hand, bringing with it a thick, unnatural fog.
‘Hurry, Llewyn,’ she said, reaching down to him as the fog hid them from the Huntress and her rimewolf. ‘Get on!’
He shook his head. ‘Lead her … right to Siwan,’ he said through a gasp of pain. ‘Have to … lead her away.’
He wanted to add, ‘What are you doing here? Leave me!’ But every word brought a spasm of agony. Afanan frowned in worry and confusion.
‘You’re hurt, Llewyn,’ she said. ‘You can’t hope to win this fight.’
‘Don’t need … to win.’ He hissed again, pitched forward as a pulse of pain sapped the strength from his legs. She caught him by the shoulder. Some unspoken calculation passed behind her eyes. Without a word, she hauled him up into the saddle in front of her, ignoring his groans.
‘Take Siwan to Fola,’ she said, dismounting. ‘I’ll buy you time.’ He could only gasp for breath, but she must have seen an unvoiced protest on his face. ‘Which of us stands a chance of surviving this fight?’
Neither of them did. This was how it was always going to end, from the moment he took off his ring and accepted Afanan’s invitation to the troupe.
He had believed he could escape his fate, claw back a semblance of a life.
But his life had been sold when he was still a child to a power that would never give him up.
All he could do now was place himself between the Grey Lady and the people he cared for, to use his body as a barricade, slow her wrath, and give them a slim chance to escape.
It was his duty to die here, not Afanan’s.
‘Don’t … trade your life … for mine …’ he begged.
She gave him one last smile. ‘I’ve already seen the City, Llewyn. You should, too. To glimpse a vision, at least, of what is possible, and what I tried to build.’
Afanan turned to face the Huntress, producing a chalcedony in one hand and a peridot in the other, even as a wash of flame swept through her conjured fog and burned it away.
She slapped Midnight’s rump with the heel of her hand.
The palfrey took off with a start, her pace increasing with a terrified scream as Afanan cracked both gemstones.
A burst of lightning and grasping shadows lanced towards the Huntress.
It took all Llewyn’s strength to face forward, to keep in the saddle as Midnight’s galloping sent wave after wave of agony through him.
She would get herself killed. And for what? To save him? Siwan needed Afanan far more. Her magic had bound the raven fiend, and might be needed to bind it again. She was giving him no choice but to align himself with Fola and her City, against his better judgement.
The anger was a comfort. It kept grief from layering a different sort of pain over the scrape and fire of his broken rib.
A pulsing darkness filled the corners of his vision as Midnight carried him into camp.
The sight of Siwan, terrified behind Damon on Mable, the chestnut mare from the wagon team, restored his clarity and focus.
Harwick and Spil appeared leading Mable’s pulling partner, a roan gelding called Rusty.
The horse tossed his head, frightened by the furious outpouring of Spil’s questions and arguments.
‘Llewyn!’ Spil said, his attention and his anger snapping from his husband. ‘What’s going on? Where’s Afanan? Why are we abandoning camp like this and scattering to the four winds? And …’ His anger bled away into worry. ‘Stones, Llewyn, you look like death.’
Llewyn took a breath, wincing, and braced himself to speak. ‘No time …’
‘Mount up behind him,’ Harwick said, stepping into Rusty’s stirrup. ‘And keep him in the saddle. He looks fit to pitch over. Midnight can handle the both of you, for a while at least.’
Llewyn swallowed a pained yell as Spil, his objections forgotten, pulled himself into place. ‘Llewyn, what is going on?’ Less a challenge, now, more a hope for the comfort of an explanation. But Llewyn had spent his words. Every breath was raking fire.
‘To The Garland, then,’ Harwick said firmly. ‘Fola might be able to patch him up so we can get a full bloody explanation.’
They turned the horses. Llewyn met Siwan’s eyes, full of confusion and fear. He could only nod. A paltry reassurance, but enough for her to smile weakly back and look away. And that was, to him, comfort enough.
Afanan had bought them a few moments. He could only hope Fola could buy more, and at less steep and dear a cost.