Christopher Golden - Lost Ones

The young soldier coughed again, breath ragged, and her eyes found Collette’s. Blood dripped from her left nostril and ran down her cheek. The surgeon tore away her tunic. Collette had wondered where she had been cut or stabbed, but there was no open wound. Instead, the girl’s entire right side had become a mottled mess of purple and black, blood welling under the bruised skin. Her small breasts rose and fell with her tortured breathing, but on the right side she was swollen. Between her breasts and lower, her skin had pulled taut over ridges underneath.

Broken bones.

The girl had been beaten by something inhuman or perhaps crushed underfoot. Collette studied her eyes again and saw the desperation there, the pleading for some kind of solace. She knew she ought to lie to the young soldier, tell her everything would be all right, that the surgeon would save her. But already the healer was drawing the torn scraps of her tunic up to cover her nakedness. There would be no surgeon for her.

Collette held the girl’s hand and watched her eyes as she died, hoping she provided some peace in that moment but unsure if the soldier could even see her or feel her touch.

She tasted salt on her lips and realized she was crying.

The girl’s hand was limp. Collette placed both of the soldier’s arms over her chest. A shadow loomed over her and she looked up to find King Hunyadi blocking out the sun.

“Damn them,” Hunyadi said.

Collette swallowed, coughed to clear her throat. “We’re all damned today.”

The king didn’t argue. He had his helm and armor off and one of his shirtsleeves had been torn away. Blood and dirt smeared his bare arm and a long gash had been cut just below the shoulder.

The surgeon appeared behind him. “Collette, could you clean His Majesty’s wound, please?”

She nodded. Wordlessly she went to fetch a bowl of fresh, warm water and a clean rag. First she washed out the wound as best she could, then applied a rough cream that she assumed was some holistic antibiotic ointment. By then the surgeon had reappeared and quickly stitched up the king’s wound.

Hunyadi donned his armor and helm, tested his grip on the hilt of his sword, and thanked them both. The king took a look around at the wounded. Through the opening in the face of the helm, the anger and sadness in his eyes were plain. He turned and shouted a command and a page rushed over with a horse. Hunyadi mounted the sleek black beast and rode down to war once more.

Collette watched him diminish as he rode downhill. While she stood there, Julianna came up beside her, wiping blood from her hands.

“Are you sick of this yet?”

“Of blood? Oh, yeah. Never liked blood, even when it isn’t my own,” Collette replied.

Julianna shook her head. “Not just that. All of it. You’re a legend, Coll. To these people, anyway. I mean, I understand why I’m here. Self-defense classes prepped me for dealing with an asshole in a bar or a perv trying to drag me into an alley, but not for war. I’ve done well managing to stay alive here for as long as I have. But you…you’ve got this incredible destiny and you’re just cooling your heels. I’ve seen what you can do.”

Collette shook her head. “It’s not like that. You think they left me behind because I’m the woman? This whole mission was Oliver’s idea. He’s the one who had to go. And if he was going, I had to stay behind. I still have no idea what, if anything, our destiny is, or what the magic we inherited from our mother is really going to mean. But finding out’s going to have to wait until the war’s over. Right now, these people just need something to believe in. Oliver and I can do the most damage against Atlantis by just acting as symbols.

“I’m here because…”

She saw the flicker of fear in Julianna’s eyes, and Collette realized she could not complete the sentence. They both knew what the next words would be: I’m here because Oliver could die.

Oliver could die.

Collette knew what that would mean for the Lost Ones and the Two Kingdoms, and for herself as the last surviving Legend-Born. She didn’t care. None of that mattered to her.

All she cared about was her brother coming back safely so that they could end all of this. So they could go home. Whatever home became when the war had come to an end.

Where the hell is Smith? Oliver thought.

“Somebody give me a hand!” he shouted, glancing around the library chamber as the Atlantean sorcerers began to force their way through the rubble of the fallen arch and soldiers came in through the other doors.

Kitsune appeared at his side, fur cloak rippling around her. She stared at him with jade eyes. “Bring the prince!”

Frustrated, Oliver glared at her. “I’m trying.”

He let go of the boy’s arms. The prince sat, eyes staring off into nothing as though he’d gone catatonic. Kitsune grabbed his arm and tried to pull. Oliver had found strength and quickness he’d never imagined he had since coming through the Veil and discovering he was half-legend himself, but neither he nor Kitsune could budge Prince Tzajin from his chair.

“We need Smith,” the fox-woman said, glancing around in a frenzy. “He could move the boy.”

“He’s not here,” Oliver said. “Just take him through the Veil. Go right through.”

Kitsune nodded, eyes sparkling as though they were sea glass, like most of this structure. She held out her hands, reaching for the fabric of the Veil the way that only Borderkind could, and a look of horror spread across her face.

“What’s wrong?” Blue Jay asked, dancing in toward them, the blood of Atlantean soldiers on his hands and streaked up his arms. The feathers in his hair were spotted with scarlet.

“I can’t reach the Veil,” Kitsune said.

Blue Jay paled. He reached his hands up just as Kitsune had, to no avail.

“It’s got to be some kind of defensive magic. The sorcerers did something to the building,” Oliver said.

Kitsune nodded, terror growing in her eyes.

“What if it’s not just the library?” Jay asked. “What if it’s the whole island?”

A Naga arrow whistled through the air past them. Grin began cussing out soldiers like he was at a London pub in the wee hours of the morning. Heat and frigid cold strobed through the room as Frost and Li concentrated on the rubble where the sorcerers were breaking through.

Oliver began to panic. He looked down, trying to figure out if the prince had somehow been chained to the chair or the floor. And he froze, staring under the table where Tzajin had been studying.

“Kit,” he said, his voice a rasp.

The fox-woman followed his gaze and she froze as well. “How did that get here? Ty’Lis had it in Palenque.”

Oliver nodded, still staring. The Sword of Hunyadi-the blade Ty’Lis had manipulated him into using to kill King Mahacuhta-lay under the table. Oliver crouched, fascinated, and reached out to snatch the sword up by its handle. The blade was scabbarded. It lay there as though waiting for him.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“There’s only one way that sword could have gotten here,” Jay said. “That’s if Ty’Lis left it for you to find.”

Oliver looked at him. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered. “He knew we were coming.”

Even as he said the words, Prince Tzajin began to gag. The boy retched, but nothing came out. His eyes were glazed, and then they began to bleed. Rivulets of scarlet ran like tears down his face. Blue Jay and Kitsune stepped back, but Oliver took a step nearer, bending toward him.

“What is it? What did he do to you?” Oliver shouted at the prince.

Tzajin’s head lolled back, his mouth gaping open. Oliver saw something moving down there in his throat.

He staggered back, just as the first of the jellyfish flew out of the prince’s throat. The kid kept gagging, choking as they forced their way out of him. His body convulsed. The jellyfish stung him with its gossamer tendrils, streaking Tzajin’s face and neck with red lashes. Oliver drew Hunyadi’s sword and hacked it in half.