Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

In the distance, flashes of light against the night sky painted the outline of trees and hills upon Isana’s vision, darkly dazzling. From here, the roar of clashing armies sounded like the sea crashing upon the shore at high tide, back where the Crown Legion pitted itself against the Marat horde.

She followed the images of the dream, a silent and invisible witness to them, but the awareness of things she could not possibly know flowed through her thoughts. She was impressed that her younger self had maintained such a pace, and certain that it was not enough to have outpaced any barbarian trackers. Already, they had circled two enemy positions-a shock to Isana, who had known nothing of it at the time-and on one of his heartbeat-long forays out of sight of Isana and her sister, Araris had silently slain a Marat lying in ambush, never making mention of it.

Isana saw her younger self abruptly lose her balance and fall, crying out and clasping at her swollen belly. “ Crows ,” the younger Isana swore, breathless. “Bloody crows. I think the baby is coming.”

Alia was at her side immediately, helping her up, and the younger woman traded an uncertain look with Araris.

Araris pressed forward. “Are you sure?”

Isana watched as another spasm wrenched her younger self, and she spewed a stream of profanity worthy of a veteran centurion. It took her a moment to catch her breath, then she gasped, “Reasonably so, yes.”

Araris nodded once and looked around him. “Then we must go to ground. There’s a cave not far from here.” He looked around him for a moment, clearly evaluating his choices.

The dream froze in place.

“This was my first mistake,” said a voice from beside Isana. Fade stood there, ragged, scarred, dressed in rags, a figure utterly beaten down by hardship and time.

“Fade?” Isana asked quietly.

He shook his head, his eyes bitter. “I never should have left you there.”

The dream resumed. Araris vanished into the night. He moved like a shadow through the woods, casting about for perhaps three or four minutes, until he found the dark outline of the cave’s entrance. Then he spun and ran back toward Alia and Isana.

As he approached, he suddenly became aware of another Marat hunter, not ten feet from the two young women, unseen in the shadows. He moved at once, his hand darting to his belt, to the knife there, but it seemed to Isana to happen very slowly. The Marat arose from his hiding place, bow in hand, an obsidian-tipped arrow already upon the string. Isana realized, through Fade’s recollection of the scene, that the Marat had seen Alia’s golden hair, an incongruous bit of lighter shadow. He had aimed at her because he could more easily see her.

Fade threw the knife.

The Marat released the arrow.

Fade’s knife buried itself to the hilt in the Marat’s eye. The hunter pitched over, dead before his body struck the ground.

But the arrow hed released struck Alia with a simple, heavy thump. The girl let out an explosive breath and fell to her hands and knees.

“Crows,” Fade snarled, and closed the distance to them. He stood there for a moment, torn.

“I’m all right,” Alia said. Her voice shook, but she rose, blood staining her dress, several inches below one arm. “Just a cut.” She picked up a shard of a shattered wooden shaft, black crow feathers marking the Marat missile. “The arrow broke. It must have been flawed.”

“Let me see,” Araris said, and peered at the wound. He cursed himself for not knowing more of the healing arts, but there was not a great deal of blood, not enough to threaten the girl with unconsciousness.

“Araris?” Isana asked, her voice tight with pain.

“She was lucky,” he said shortly. “But we must get out of sight now, my lady.”

“I’m not your lady,” Isana responded, by reflex.

“She’s hopeless,” Alia sighed, her voice carrying a tone of forced good cheer. “Come on, then. Let’s get out of sight.”

Araris and Alia helped Isana to the cave. It took them far longer than Araris would have liked, but Isana could barely keep her feet. At last, though, they reached the cave, one of several such sites Septimus’s scouts had prepared in the event that elements of the Legion might need a refuge from one of the violent local furystorms, or from the harsh winter squalls that came howling down out of the Sea of Ice.

Its entrance hidden by thick brush, the cave bent around a little S-shaped tunnel that would trap any light from giving away its location. Then it opened up into a small chamber, perhaps twice the size of the standard legionares tent. A small fire pit lay ready, complete with fuel. A quiet little stream had been diverted to run through the back corner of the cave, murmuring down the rock wall to a small, shallow pool before continuing on its way beneath the stone.

Alia helped Isana to the ground beside the fire, and Araris lit it with a routine effort of minor furycraft. He spoke the furylamps to life as well, and they burned with a low, scarlet flame. “No bedrolls, I’m afraid,” he said. He stripped out of his scarlet cloak and rolled it into a pillow, which he slipped beneath Isana’s head.

The younger Isana’s eyes were glazed with pain. Her back contorted with another contraction, and she clenched her teeth over an agonized scream.

Time went by as it does in dreams, infinitely slowly while passing in dizzying haste. Isana remembered little of that night herself, beyond the steady, endless cycles of pain and terror. She had no clear idea of how long she lay in that cave all those years ago, but except for a brief trip outside to obscure signs of their passing, Araris had watched over her for every moment of every hour. Alia sat with her, bathing her brow with a damp kerchief and giving her water between bouts of pain.

“Sir Knight,” Alia said finally. “Something is wrong.”

Araris ground his teeth and looked at her. “What is it?”

The true Isana drew in a sharp breath. She had no memory of the words. Her last memory of her sister was of seeing her through a haze of tears as Alia used the wet cloth to wipe tears and sweat from Isana’s eyes.

“The baby,” Alia said. The girl bit her lip. “I think it’s turned wrong.”

Araris stared helplessly at Isana. “What can we do?”

“She needs assistance. A midwife or a trained healer.”

Araris shook his head. “There’s not a steadholt in the whole of the Calderon Valley-not until the new Steadholders arrive next year.”

“The Legion healers, then?”

Araris stared steadily at her. Then he said, “If any of them lived, they would have been here already.”

Alia blinked at him in surprise, and her brow furrowed in confusion. “My lord?”

“Nothing but death would have kept my lord from your sister’s side,” Araris said quietly. “And if he died, it means that the Marat forces were overwhelming, and the Legion died with him.”

Alia just stared at him, and her lower lip began to tremble. “B-but…”

“For now, the Marat control the valley,” Araris said quietly. “Reinforcements from Riva and Alera Imperia will arrive, probably before the day is out. But for now, it would be suicide to leave this place. We have to stay until we’re sure it’s safe.”

Another contraction hit the young Isana, and she gasped through it, biting down on a twisted length of leather cut from the singulare’s belt, even though she was too weakened by the hours of labor to manage a very loud scream. Alia bit her lip, and Araris’s eyes were haunted as he watched, unable to help.

“Then…” Alia straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. It was a heartrending gesture for Isana to see now, a child’s obvious effort to put steel into her own spine-and almost as obviously failing. “We’re on our own then. “