Firebrand

His eyes fluttered open.

“My lord?” she said. “Can you hear me?”

“Karigan?” he whispered. He raised a trembling hand to her face. His fingers brushed across her cheek. “Are you real, or another vision sent to torment me?”

She pressed his hand against her cheek. “I am real. We’ve come to get you out.”

His eyes focused then, and gleamed with tears. “I think you are sent from the heavens.”

Taken aback, she gently placed his hand on his chest. “Let me undo these straps and we’ll see if we can get you up.”

She moved along the table to his feet. She raised the knife to cut through the strap that bound his ankle when leather thongs lashed out of the dark and wrapped around her forearm. Her knife clattered to the tabletop, and she cried out as barbs ripped her sleeve and bit into her skin. She grabbed onto the whip beneath the handle. Holding the handle, of course, was Nyssa, her face distorted in the dim light and as nasty as any nightmare wrought by Karigan’s imagination.

“I did not think you would be up and about so soon,” Nyssa said. “Clearly you deserved a few more lashes. No matter, we will remedy that. Grandmother will not be pleased you cut up her knotwork.”

Karigan hauled at the whip, trying to loosen its hold on her, but there was only weakness and pain where once there had been muscle strength. Nyssa was as strong as ever, and she started to reel Karigan in.

“We were waiting for you,” she said. “We knew you would come back for your king.”

Resistance only strained Karigan’s back all the more, and the barbs only dug deeper into the flesh of her forearm. When she was face-to-face with Nyssa, the torturer grinned, drew back her fist, and slammed it into Karigan’s stab wound. Everything melted away into a gray fog. When it settled, she found herself curled on the floor, her wound screaming.

“Where is the tough Greenie I’ve heard about?” Nyssa demanded from behind her. “The swordmaster and avatar?”

Ava-what? Karigan thought numbly.

“Such a disappointment,” Nyssa said.

Karigan started to push herself up, but Nyssa kicked her in the back. She screamed and collapsed to her side and was kicked again, and again, and flipped over so that she faced Nyssa. So overwhelmed by pain was she that she could only stare up at her tormentor. Tears blurred her vision turning Nyssa into a monster that loomed above, her whip swinging at her side like a prehensile extension of her arm. She knelt beside Karigan, grabbed her chin in a vicelike grip. She filled Karigan’s vision.

“I’d finish you off Greenie, but that’s no fun. Besides, Grandmother wants you. And I have a friend who wants a piece of you, as well.” She chuckled. “If you are still alive when they are done with you, I’ll have my turn, and I will make you my slave. Don’t think it can be done? Think again.”

Nyssa threw her head back to laugh, but stopped short, a quizzical expression on her face. Then she simply collapsed in a heap. Karigan was not sure if it was her own state of mind, or some other force in the universe, but the world seemed to shift beneath her, a thread among the stars changing course. When the sensation passed and her vision cleared, she saw her king standing there, her own knife in his hand, and blood dripping off the blade.

• • •

She must have passed out briefly because Enver was shaking her awake. She wanted to go back to sleep. Everything hurt. She tried to push him away, but felt too feeble to lift a finger.

“Galadheon,” he said, “you must go.”

“Go where?” she asked wearily.

“Out of the forest. You and the king must leave.”

King? And then she remembered. She tried to rise, but pain ripped through her back, and she slumped onto the floor. “Where is he?”

Enver glanced over his shoulder, then returned his gaze to her. “Dressing.”

“Dressing?”

“Yes.”

Karigan’s gaze wandered and fell on the corpse of Nyssa very close by, her eyes rolled back. Karigan looked away. Dead or not, that woman was going to haunt her dreams.

The door creaked open.

“Hurry,” said Lord Fiori. “The keep is waking up.”

“Stand, Galadheon,” Enver said. He more or less lifted her to her feet, and she cried out in pain and almost fainted away. “I am sorry, but there is little time. You and your king will ride Mist to Nari. Mist will know the way, but you must use your ability. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I . . .”

“I am ready.” The voice belonged to King Zachary.

Karigan looked over Enver’s shoulder. The king was dressed in buckskin and looked a different man, a rugged woodsman, and the effect was not displeasing. A dead man, relieved of his clothes, lay on the table. Apparently he’d been the source of the king’s new attire. The king gazed back at her, his expression unreadable, and then Enver started to drag her outside.

“Wait,” she said. She went over to the brazier and tried to kick it over, but even that was too much for her. The king, seeing what she was about, finished the job for her. Coals spilled across the rough-hewn floor and slammed into the wall. She watched in satisfaction as flames licked at the wood.

Enver drew her away and outside into the dark. The woods were filled with shouts of alarm and barking dogs.

“Your ability, Galadheon,” he said.

She held out her hands. The king took her left, his grip warm and reassuring. Enver took her right, and Lord Fiori grabbed Enver’s arm. She had never tried to fade so many people at once, but she did it. Perhaps Enver’s influence helped. They moved awkwardly through the forest, pausing if anyone came too close. People converged on Nyssa’s workshop. Karigan glanced over her shoulder, and firelight shone through the open door. Grandmother, she thought, was not going to be pleased. Despite the pain and exhaustion, she smiled.