Paul Thompson: Sister of the Sword

Out of the darkness hurtled a slender figure, wrapped in a black ox hide cape. He got a fleeting impression of a pale face wreathed in curly auburn hair. The next thing Amero knew, a span of sharp bronze penetrated his buckskin shirt, then the flesh below his left ribs.

Astonished, he grasped the two hands holding the dagger’s handle and forced them back. The blade twisted as it was pulled out. Blood sluiced from the wound, pouring down his leg and over his feet.

“Die, traitor!” said a high, quavering voice.

Duranix devoured six full-grown elk before midnight and then settled down to sleep off his prodigious meal. His heavy, dreamless rest ended suddenly when he felt a sharp pain in his lower left side. The sensation was so strong and so real that he felt along his scaly flank, expecting to find a fresh wound. There was none.

His long neck snapped around, and he stared at the intervening mountains. Something was wrong—deadly wrong.

“Amero,” he said, and launched himself skyward.

Karada took her hand out of the fire. Since Amero’s departure, she’d been testing herself, seeing how long she could bear a flame against the palm of her hand. Zannian continued to snore behind her.

She counted the thud of her heartbeat silently. One, two, three, four... the skin on her palm began to blister. Suddenly, an even stronger pain lanced into her side. Karada gasped and slumped away from the hearth. Under the wolfskin robe the flesh on her left side, between her ribs and hip bone, was unbroken, but it felt for all the world as though she’d been stabbed.

Zannian snorted and stirred. He pushed himself up on one hand, muttering obscenities. “Who did that?” he growled, obviously thinking himself still in command of his raiders. “Which one of you scum poked me with your dagger?”

Karada tied a beaded belt tightly around her waist and grabbed her sword belt. If she and Zannian both felt the stabbing pain in the same spot at the same time, Amero must have felt it, too. Something about that thought filled her with dread. A sense of urgency sent her running from the tent.

She had to find him. She had to find Amero now.

Lyopi sat up a long time, waiting for her man to come home. She knew his meeting with Karada would he difficult, but she didn’t begrudge him the time it would take to say good-bye to his powerful, troubled sister. Midnight came and went, and still Amero did not return. Patience gave way to annoyance. Certainly, this wasn’t the first night they’d spent together, but it was supposed to be an important one. Where was that inconsiderate, overgrown boy?

A sound at the door flap sent her striding to the opening. She drew back the flap, and a bloody spectre barred her way. Lyopi was not easily frightened, but this unexpected apparition brought a cry of surprise to her lips.

The gory vision raised its head, and Lyopi felt her stomach clench in horror.

“Amero!”

He fell into her arms. She backed inside, half-dragging her blood-soaked mate with her. After lowering him to the floor, she felt at his neck for a pulse. It was there, weak and rapid, but he’d lost—by the ancestors!—he’d lost so much blood!

There was a deep wound in his left side, obviously made by a metal blade. No flint knife could make so thin and clean a cut, though it appeared the knife had been twisted in the wound.

All this she took in even as she was frantically wadding a piece of doeskin and pressing it to the bleeding wound. Amero stirred, trying to escape the pain her pressure created.

“Be still!” she snapped, fear coursing through her. “You’re bleeding to death!”

He coughed feebly, his body spasming. He said something, but the words bubbled so horribly in his throat she couldn’t make them out.

“What?” She pressed hard on the makeshift bandage with her strong hands. “Who did this to you, Amero?”

“Sensarku girl.”

He must be delirious. All the Sensarku had died on the western plain with their leader, Tiphan. There were none left, in Yala-tene or anywhere else.

Amero trembled violently. His teeth chattered. Lyopi pulled a fleecy hide over him and cradled his head in her lap. Looking toward the doorway, she shouted for help.

“Lyopi,” he whispered.

“Shh, don’t talk.” She shouted again for help.

“Don’t be angry,” he said weakly.

“I’m not angry, Amero, but I’ll never forgive you if you die!”

“Duranix...”

Tears of terror and frustration were coursing down her cheeks. “I don’t know where he is!”

“So many things to know... so many.”

He exhaled a long, slow breath. It was his last.

Duranix had never flown so fast, not even while chasing Sthenn around the world. He couldn’t seem to find any greater speed, no matter how he canted his wings or knotted his tremendous muscles. He would be too late. He knew it.

Amero spoke his name, and he demanded, Why didn’t you wait? I was coming!

Like a fading echo, he heard: So many things to know... so many. That was all. Though Duranix called and called, he heard nothing more.

His wings slowed. The throbbing strain in his flying muscles eased, but a more pervasive and subtle pain held Duranix in an unbreakable grip. He roared at the empty sky. His bellow solved nothing. The pain remained. He flew on.

Karada ran a hundred steps before she staggered to a stop, falling against a tent pitched by the path. Down she slid to her knees, feeling as though she were plunging into an icy river. Vicious cold climbed to her neck, then her eyes. When it reached the top of her head, it slowly left her.

Someone was calling her name. “Karada! Karada!”

Her vision cleared. Mara was kneeling in front of her, shaking her by the shoulders.

“What? What?”

“Karada, we’re safe now!” Mara said, green eyes ablaze. “I saved us! I saved us all!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I stopped the Arkuden!”

Cold fury as hard and sharp as flint put strength back into the nomad chief. She seized Mara by the hair and hauled her upright.

“What have you done?” she snarled, shaking the girl so hard her neck bones creaked.

Mara’s hands clutched futilely at the strong fingers entwined in her hair, her words punctuated by yelps of pain. “I struck him down, Karada! For all of us! For you! He was your brother, but he was a traitor! He gave us over to the Silvanesti —”

Karada uttered a scream of pure anguish, punctuated by Mara’s whimpering, and drew her sword.

The tumult awakened the nomads, and they spilled out of their tents. They saw their chief, tears streaming down her face, holding the girl Mara by the hair. Karada’s sword was bared.

“I’ll kill you!” Karada rasped.

“Karada, please, listen! I did it for you! Your fight to drive the elves off our ancestral lands was doomed! The Arkuden betrayed you —”

Up went the gleaming sword. Mara stopped clutching at her hair and threw up her hands as though to ward off the blow. It never fell. Karada’s sword hand was held harmless in Pakito’s mighty grip.

“Let me go, Pakito!”

“No, chief. I don’t know what’s happened here, but you can’t kill this helpless girl.” He yanked the sword from her hand. Turning, he gave it to Samtu, who stood behind him, her own weapon at the ready.

“Let her go, Karada,” Samtu said. “We won’t let her get away.”

The nomad chief opened her hand, releasing her hold on Mara’s tangled hair. The girl dropped heavily at her feet, weeping. When she tried to wrap her arms around the chiefs ankles, Karada kicked her until she shrank away. Mara groveled, not even protesting the blows she’d taken.

“What’s she done?” Samtu asked, grimacing at the distasteful display.