Greg Keyes - The Born Queen

“What do you babble about?” the Vhelny asked.

“We’ll just go and see,” Stephen said, rubbing his hands together. “At worst it will help pass the time. But I don’t think it will be worst. The first thing is to find a safe place for Zemlé.”

The last time Aspar had seen the Sa Ceth ag Sa’Nem, the “Shoulders of Heaven,” he had been in the bloom of early and unexpected love. They—and everything else he saw—had appeared beautiful beyond imagining.

He supposed they still were, those mammoth peaks whose summits were so high that they faded into the sky like the moon at midday. But he wasn’t giddy with love this time, far from it. No, he was thinking mostly about killing.

The geos wouldn’t let him, not yet, not until he actually had gotten Winna to the Vhenkherdh or, presumably, when she got there with Leshya. Until then, he couldn’t slit Fend crotch to breastbone because then Fend’s monsters would kill him, and the geos didn’t want that.

That was how things were. When they reached the valley, they would change.

He no longer held much hope that anything useful could be done there. He didn’t doubt that Fend would cut open Winna and offer whatever was growing in her in some grizzly and pointless sacrifice dreamt up by the diseased mind of the Sarnwood witch. But heal the forest, bring it back? It didn’t seem possible. It also didn’t seem very likely that he and Winna were going to get out of the valley alive once they got there. It might be that the best he could do was give her an easy death, then slaughter Fend and as many of the others as he could before they took him down. The thought of dying didn’t bother him much; without the forest and without Winna, there wasn’t anything keeping him in the lands of fate.

He was still in that bleak mood a few bells later, when the unexpected walked up and slapped it right out of him.

They were switchbacking up to the top of a long ridge of hills when a stream crossed their path. And there, just where the water ran off the hill, grew a little green fern. Not a black spider tree or dragon-tongue thing but a simple honest bracken.

Farther along the trail they found more, and by day’s end they were in almost natural woodland again. For the first time since entering the King’s Forest his chest relaxed a bit, and the stench of putrefaction was almost gone.

So the heart of it is still alive , he thought. Leshya was right about that, at least. Maybe she was right about more.

Leshya had taken Winna, which suggested the Sefry also thought that the child she carried might be the solution to the problem. But had she thought that all along, or had she heard his conversation with Fend? And Leshya and Winna weren’t alone. There was a third set of tracks: Ehawk’s. Leshya was taking them to the valley the same way Aspar had the last time, a long way around that required climbing down a deep gorge of briar trees.

They’d left their trail a day before; Fend was going by a more direct route that would allow horses in. That was how the knight was going, too. With any luck at all, they would actually beat Leshya, Winna, and Ehawk. When Winna entered the valley, the geos ought to lift, and then Aspar could do as he pleased.

By nightfall, with the sound of whippoorwills around him, he no longer was so certain what that would be. Because he had hope again, as frail and as obstinate as a bracken.

Cazio fought in a bloody blur, all sense of time lost. His arm was so tired that he’d had no choice but to switch to his left, and when that failed him, he went back to the right, but the rest hadn’t helped it much. His lungs flamed in his chest, and his legs wobbled beneath him. As he clumsily drew Acredo from his latest opponent, he saw another coming. He spun to face the foe and kept spinning, toppling to the bloody earth. The Sefry slashed at him with a curved sword, but Cazio kept rolling, then reversed direction and thrust Acredo out hopefully. The Sefry, probably nearly as tired as he was, obligingly ran onto the point. He slid down the blade and onto Cazio, gasping strange curses before setting off west. Grunting, Cazio tried to push the dead weight off, but his body didn’t want to cooperate. He summoned the image of Austra, helpless in the carriage, and finally managed to roll the man off and stagger back to his feet, leaning on Acredo just in time to meet five more of the Sefry, who were spreading to surround him.

He heard someone behind him.

“It’s me,” z’Acatto’s voice said.

Cazio couldn’t help a tired grin as the old man’s back came against his.

“We’ll hold each other up,” the mestro said.

From that simple touch, Cazio felt a rush of strength he had no notion still lived in him. Acredo came up, fluid, almost with a life of its own. Steel rang behind him, and Cazio shouted hoarsely, parrying an attack and drilling his rapier through a yellow-eyed warrior.

“Glad I came?” z’Acatto grunted.

“I had the upper hand anyway,” Cazio said. “But I don’t mind the company.”

“That’s not the impression I had.”

Cazio thrust, parried a counter to his arm, and sent his enemy dancing back from his point.

“I sometimes speak too quickly,” Cazio admitted.

The two Sefry he faced came at him together. He bound the blade of the first to strike and ran through the other, then let go of the blade and punched the first man in the face. He reeled back, during which time Cazio withdrew Acredo and set it back to guard.

He heard z’Acatto grunt, and something stung Cazio’s back. He dispatched the staggering Sefry, then turned in time to parry a blow aimed at z’Acatto. The old man thrust into the foe’s belly, and suddenly they were alone. Around them the battle was nearly over, with z’Acatto’s men surrounding a small knot of the remaining Sefry.

Z’Acatto sat down hard, holding his side. Cazio saw blood spurting through his fingers, very dark, nearly black.

“I think,” z’Acatto grunted, “it’s time we drank that wine.”

“Let’s bind you up first,” Cazio said.

“No need for that.”

Cazio got a knife, cut a broad strip from a Sefry shirt, and started wrapping it tightly around z’Acatto’s torso. The wound was a puncture, very deep.

“Just get the damned wine,” the mestro said.

“Where is it?” Cazio asked, feeling the apple in his throat.

“In my saddle pack,” z’Acatto wheezed.

It took Cazio a while to find the horse, which wisely had moved away from the fighting.

He dug one of the bottles of Zo Buso Brato out and then raced back to where his swordmaster still sat waiting. His head was down, and for a moment Cazio thought he was too late, but then the old man lifted his arm, proffering a corkscrew.

“It might be vinegar,” Cazio cautioned, flopping down next to his mentor.

“Might be,” z’Acatto agreed. “I was saving it for when we got back to Vitellio, back to your house.” “We can still wait.”

“We’ll have the other bottle there.”

“Fair enough,” Cazio agreed.

The cork came out in one piece, which was astonishing, considering its age. Cazio handed it to z’Acatto. The older man took it weakly and smelled it.

“Needs to breathe,” he said. “Ah, well.” He tilted it back and took a sip, eyes closed, and smiled. “That’s not too bad,” he murmured. “Try it.”

Cazio took the bottle and then hesitantly took a drink.

In an instant the battlefield was gone, and he felt the warm sun of Vitellio, smelled hay and rosemary, wild fennel, black cherry—but underneath that something enigmatic, as indescribable as an ideal sunset. Tears sprang in his eyes, unbidden.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “Perfect. Now I understand why you’ve been trying to find it for so long.” Z’Acatto’s only answer was the faint smile that remained on his face.