Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

“As you wish, Will.” The mage shook his head wearily and returned to his work.

After the battle, the company was conducted to a new cork . In the lower common room, Kerrigan worked with Bok on Lombo’s wounds. The dra-conette shots had done little more than stun the Panqui, though a few shots had drawn blood. Kerrigan had not had an easy time removing the dra-conette balls or repairing cracked bits of Lombo’s bony hide—but mostly because Lombo hated being fussed over.

The Panqui’s protestations had finally been enough to get Kerrigan focused on the others. After Lombo, the most grievously wounded had been Princess Sayce. Now Will cut across the lower chamber of the cork and up the steps to the woman’s sphere. There he crossed to the rounded doorway leading to the princess’ chamber.

He hesitated for a moment and his heart rose in his throat. Sayce lay on a soft pallet with a white sheet draped over her, tucked up to her throat. Her head lay on a satin pillow all but hidden by the flaming carpet of her hair. Her mask had been removed, but in its place she wore a light lace replacement. Like the sheet, it was white, and served to emphasize her pale skin.

For a heartbeat he feared she was dead, but her chest rose and fell slowly. Relief flooded through him. The idea that those eyes might never open again was something he couldn’t countenance. Once he saw she was resting peacefully, he smiled and the tightness around his heart eased.

Will turned to leave, not wanting to disturb her, but she stirred. He looked at her, and slowly she turned her face toward him.

As she had lain there, he’d only seen her right profile, but the left side of her face was mottled purple and blue, with yellow at the edges. The lace courtesy mask stood out against that angry flesh. She snaked her left hand from beneath the sheet and raised it as if to touch her face, then let her arm fall across her stomach instead.

“Will?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Will’s voice grew small and he swallowed. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

She snorted lightly, then winced. “My head hurts more than when a horse clipped me.”

“I can get Kerrigan.”

“No, no; don’t.” Her voice gained a little strength and a lot of urgency. “He’s done enough for me. Come in. Sit.”

“But you should be resting.”

“I am on a stone bed in a rock hole, which is a lot like being entombed.” Her right eye flashed brightly—far more so than her bloodshot left eye. “Feeling half-dead in a grave is not very restful.”

Will smiled and entered the room. He thought for a moment about sitting on the edge of her bed, but it was narrow enough that she’d have to move closer to the wall. Instead, he sat on the floor with his back to her bed and looked up at her over his right shoulder. “I’m glad you’re doing better.”

“I was lucky. Dranae thinks the draconetteer didn’t load enough firedirt or that it was wet, so only some of it burned. The ball hit the left side of my forehead. My mask helped. Still cracked my skull, but your friend healed that.”

The thief shivered. Kerrigan had described it as a depressed fracture—which was the fancy way of labeling the big dent in her head. Kerrigan managed to get the bone out of her brain and fix up all the immediate damage. It had been a harrowing healing for Kerrigan, tired as he was from helping the urZrethi to flood the hallway, but he had triumphed.

“He can take care of the rest of it. You’ll be good as new.”

“Why don’t you let him fix your face?”

Will shrugged uneasily. He didn’t mind having a scar there—not that he thought Peri’s handiwork would leave much of one. The scar would create a link between him and Crow, since they’d both earned scars fighting Chytrine. Heroes always had scars. In some ways it seemed to Will as if it were cheating for a hero to be unmarked.

“Kerrigan has better things to do than to make me better-looking.” Will smiled. “As if that could be done.”

Sayce smiled and let her right hand drift down from beneath the sheet to brush fingers through Will’s brown hair. “You may be right there, Will. Making me look better would take a lot of work. The left side of my face is throbbing.”

“You look fine.”

“Is that some honest deception, Will? Stick with thieving. You don’t lie very well.”

“I’m not lying.” Will frowned, and the stitches pulled a bit. A blush warmed his cheeks, then the frown melted into a goofy grin he was glad she couldn’t see. “You look a lot better now than when I saw you fall.”

Sayce nodded weakly. “I know what you did, Will. When I was hit, I didn’t black out. Not at first. It’s not like I remember events in order. I do remember your voice, though.”

Her fingers idly played with his hair, but she turned her face to stare toward the dim ceiling. “I had been hit hard. I knew I was hurt. Badly. I was going to die. The shock… the pain… I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I couldn’t move. And then… then, Will, I heard your voice. ‘By my blood, you will not pass.’ My life had been slipping from me, but your order, it stopped me. I wasn’t going to pass from this life. I couldn’t. So I knew I would survive.”

She glanced down at him again and smiled. “Earlier, Kerrigan came in and wanted to fix my face. I told him to go away. He sighed.”

Will nodded, relishing the sensation of her fingers against his scalp.

“He said,‘What is going on with you people?’ I asked what he meant, and he told me you refused to be healed, too. Kerrigan thought it must have something to do with being hit on the left side of the head.” She twined a lock of his hair around a finger. “When I found out that you refused healing, I decided I would, too.”

“But, Princess, you could use it.”

“You don’t understand, Will. Your men, the Freemen, they’re willing to take a mask from you and wear your mark to honor you. Similar wound, same engagement. I’ll wear this bruise to honor you for saving my life.”

“But I didn’t…”

She lowered her hand and pressed a finger to his lips. “Stop. You acted when it was needed. Think about any hero you know. Think about Crow. Heroes don’t think about acting heroic, they just do. They see a need and they fulfill it.

“You know, Will, I never doubted you were the Norrington of prophecy. I might have wondered if you were truly the hero he was supposed to be, but no more.” Sayce exhaled heavily and her eyes fluttered. “I’m sorry, I’m drifting back to sleep. I don’t want to be rude.”

Will stood slowly, taking her hand in his, then laying it on the edge of the bed. “Rest some more.”

“You’ll come see me again?”

Her question made his stomach do a little flip-flop. “Of course.”

“Good.” She smiled and closed her eyes.

Her lips moved again, but Will could not hear what she was saying. As quietly as he could he left her chamber, fingering the stitches above his left eye. He’d thought of it as a link with Crow, but now Sayce had forged it into a link between them. That idea pleased him.

He thought more about it, and let the events tumble back down into the whole myth he’d conjured about his life. Once upon a time he wanted to be known as Will the Nimble, the King of the Dimandowns. He wanted to be known as a rival to the Azure Spider. Resolute had accurately ridiculed that notion at their first meeting, then had led him off on an incredible series of adventures. He’d gone to Vilwan and seen dragons battle. He’d gone to Okrannel and had seen an Aurolani army crushed. He’d been feted and celebrated in Yslin and Meredo. He’d raided Wruona and stolen a fragment of the DragonCrown from the Azure Spider.