Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

She had never intended to look back—but despite her instincts of self-preservation, her eyes were drawn toward the unfolding scene. The guardsmen gathered themselves and rushed forward. Their swords crashed down—to embed themselves in the table in a deluge of ale as the stranger ducked and rolled, taking two of his assailants down in a tangle of arms and legs. Tilda gathered her skirts to run, but a shriek of agony stopped her in her tracks. One of the soldier’s opponents rolled screaming on the floor, a knife in his belly. Tilda gasped, Who was this man? Even drunk, his movements had been almost too quick for her to follow.

He had obviously scared the others. No one wanted to be the first to approach him. The remaining guards merged in a loose semicircle around the stranger, who stood at bay with his back to the serving hatch. “Well?” he taunted them.

“Which one of you bastards wants to be next?”

It was a standoff—the soldier seemed drunk, but after the speed of his reactions, Tilda doubted it. Then she saw the servingman—a flicker of shadowy movement behind the hatch—holding a short sword in his hand. He lurked behind the stranger, prepared to do the guardsmen’s work for them, hoping, no doubt, for a reward. He raised his arm . . .

“Behind you!” Tilda yelled. The stranger dodged barely in time. The sword caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head, and crashed down to knock splinters out of the bar as its intended victim spun away, vanishing from sight as the guards closed in on him. By that time, Tilda had problems of her own. She had done the one thing she had sworn not to do—attracted attention to herself. Hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her arms behind her back.

“Obstruct the City Guard, would you? You’re under arrest, bitch!” The voice was harsh in her ear, followed by a glob of saliva that struck the side of her face, and trickled, warm and slimy, down her cheek. Her arms were wrenched until she cried out with pain—then there was a sudden movement in the corner of her eye and the sound of a fist crunching into bone. The grip on her arms loosened, falling away so abruptly that she staggered—and was caught by another pair of arms, gentle, this time, and supportive. Tilda looked up into the ugliest face she had ever seen. “Jarvas!” she gasped thankfully. Her captor had staggered back, choking, with blood spurting between the fingers of the hands that were clasped across his face.

“That one won’t be hurting any more women for a while!” As he was speaking, Jarvas guided her to a stool in the safety of the corner. Tilda watched, open-mouthed, as he seized a heavy branch from the woodpile by the fire, and waded into the fray.

The stranger was still holding his own—but barely. Blood poured from a head wound, where his left ear had almost been severed, and trickled down his ribs, staining his stout leather jerkin. Though the fight had moved across the room, he was still at bay, with his back to a corner, but the guards—a dozen or so—were closing in on him, and Tilda could see that he was weakening. Already he was glassy-eyed and reeling, and at any moment . . .

Then Jarvas was among the guardsmen wielding his sturdy bough in great, two-handed sweeps. The outermost guards, unaware that this flailing giant was descending on them, simply crumpled beneath the impact of his blows. The others turned, their swords upraised to make short work of this madman who dared accost them with only a branch against their long steel blades. It was a mistake. Seeing help at hand, the stranger seemed to find new strength. With a wild yell, he was on them, fighting like a dervish.

Jarvas was like a man possessed, cracking his bough against arms and faces, dodging sword thrusts, and wreaking havoc among the guards. It looked, against all the odds, as though the mismatched pair were going to pull off a victory between them—when Tilda saw the fat toad of a merchant who had started all this trouble creeping to the door, obviously going for help. The excitement of the fight had gone to Tilda’s head. Without stopping to think, she picked up her stool and crept up behind Pendral, cracking him hard across the back of the head. The flimsy wood splintered on impact, but the fat man went down like a felled tree. Tilda whooped with excitement. Thoroughly roused, she grabbed another stool, and advanced on the remaining guards, waiting until their backs were turned then clouting them.

It was easy—until the guards began to realize that their assailant was not a giant or a warrior, but a small and inexperienced woman. As one, they started to move in on her. Tilda backed away, cold inside with the knowledge that she had bitten off more than she could swallow.

“What in the Gods’ name do you think you’re doing?” A strong arm wrenched her sideways, as a blade came whistling down where she’d been standing. “Get back, you idiot, and keep out of the bloody way!” Jarvas hurled her aside so hard that she fell, and brought his cracked and shortened cudgel crashing down on the wrist of the man who had attacked her. Tilda picked herself up with an oath, rubbing at bruises, grateful for her rescue, but absurdly annoyed that he had been so rough and slighting. I was doing all right until then! she thought angrily. I’ll show him! She looked around for another stool—but the fight was already over. The stranger grinned at Jarvas, over a pile of bodies. “Good fight!” he said—and crumpled.

“Oh bollocks!” Jarvas said. “Can you help me . . . ?” He frowned for a moment, then his face cleared. “Tilda, isn’t it? I’ll have to take him home. It won’t be safe for us on the streets tonight—not once word of this gets out.” He paused, looking down at her. “I’m afraid that also means you, girl—you should have run when you had the chance! Now you’re in this as deep as the rest of us.”

Tilda went cold all over. “I can’t go with you,” she protested, not wanting to accept the greater import of his words.

“What about my son? He needs me—and besides, I’ve got a living to make!”

Jarvas looked at her gravely and shook his head. “Not in Nexis,” he told her. “Not anymore.”

The great cat limped across the shattered rocks of the valley, her faltering feet trailing smears of blood across the cruel stones. Her massive form, dwarfed by the desolate immensity of the mountains, seemed pitifully frail to Anvar; her protruding ribs cast stripes of light., and shade across the dull, matted coat that hung on her sunken flanks. Her muzzle, where her teeth were clenched grimly around the Staff of Earth, was covered in blisters and scabs, and saliva hung from her jaws in thick, slimy strands.

“Shia! Great Gods, Shia!” Anvar cried, unable to bear the sight of the great cat’s suffering.

She glanced up at him, her yellow eyes dull and glazed. “What do you want?” she said briefly, without a pause in her painful, monotonous plodding.

“Shia! Where are you? Are you all right? Dear Gods, what happened to you?”

The great cat snarled around her mouthful of Staff. “Do I look all right?” she snorted. “To answer your other stupid question—what happened to me is that this thing I’m carrying is trying to kill me by slow degrees—but it won’t succeed, whatever it thinks . . . And it does think—though not in the usual sense. The process is more like instinct—since I cannot wield it, it tries to destroy me. You Magefolk should know about that...” She staggered, grunting with pain, and began to speak again as she resumed her weary pacing. “As to where I am—I’m on my way! Aurian asked me to bring this wretched object to you, so that you can escape Aerillia, and go to her aid...”

The valley seemed to be filling with silvery mist that streamed along its floor like a relentless tide. Anvar was losing Shia. . , She was vanishing before his eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she snapped, “Stop this nonsense at once and get back into your body! A fine fool I’ll look if I drag this horrendous thing all the way to Aerillia and you’re dead! Don’t you dare let Aurian down that way! She needs you...”