Dave Smeds - The Schemes of Dragons

No desert here. But a gnawing emptiness ate away at his insides, like the thirst of the night's visions. He wiped a feverish sudor from his upper lip.

Wynneth handed him a cup of water. He sipped gratefully. She tenderly brushed his cheek, her glance drawing his. He shook his head. She nodded.

There was no need for talk. She understood the loss he felt. She knew that he would tell her as soon as there was a change. In the meantime, she would nurture him. Of all the people he had known, she was the one who knew when to draw him out, and when to leave him to his private thoughts. It was why he had married her, when he could have had a lady of greater beauty, higher station, or more vivaciousness. They were twinned in ways that he and his sister were not.

"Breakfast will be ready soon," she said. She kissed him and returned to the task.

He groaned as he sat up. "Where's Elenya?"

"Outside."

The jays screeched, fighting in the treetops, knocking loose the dew. The drops beat out a cadence against the leaves and the ground as they fell. Alemar stepped onto the porch, head still leaden and painful. He peered through the thinning mist. Elenya was practicing her swordcraft near a flat stump fifty paces away.

She had placed a pumpkin on the stump as a target. The rind showed only one tiny hole, barely wider than the thickness of her rapier. He watched her thrust again and again. Once, the fruit wobbled a little under the impact. She steadied it, frowned, and examined the tip of her blade. She had not missed the mark; there were no additional holes. Alemar decided that she must have thrust deeper, penetrating fresh tissue. She adjusted her stance and resumed her practice.

After another fifty thrusts-and probably a hundred before he had begun to watch-she shifted her rapier to the other hand for the second half of the routine.

In her mid-twenties, Elenya had never moved more efficiently, more confidently, more powerfully. She made no superfluous body movements. Her eyes remained fixed on the pumpkin, her head did not bob. The tension gathered in her ankles and calves. She sprang suddenly, transferring the force straight up to her wrist. The rapier seemed more like an arrow in flight than a blade in hand. When she stopped, it was utter: for a moment she would be a statue, every bit of strength and coordination under complete control.

Alemar counted one hundred fifty jabs. She sheathed her rapier, rotated the pumpkin, and drew both her demonblades. She had begun wearing two from the moment they had left the Eastern Deserts. That, and her frequent choice of white garments, were the obvious reminders that she remembered what it was to be a hai-Zyraii, though she seldom spoke of it.

She threw one knife forehand, the other backhand. They lodged side by side. When she pulled them from the rind and assumed her stance again, Alemar decided she meant to continue drilling.

"That's enough," he called. "You're supposed to be recuperating."

She gave no sign of being startled, but Alemar knew she had been oblivious to his presence until he spoke. He left the porch to join her. She wiped off her steel and tucked it away.

"Too long without exercise," she explained. "I couldn't stay asleep. I was going to stop soon."

"Of course you were."

"I'm slow," she said, rubbing the hand where the gauntlet should have been, still keeping her face averted. "It feels like I'm moving through syrup."

Alemar knew she was simply making conversation. She practiced at least once a week without the gauntlet, just so she didn't become dependent on magical speed. "You're the most difficult patient I've ever treated," he said sternly. "It's still quite possible to strain your system and develop a fever. Come in and have breakfast. We'll talk." He'd returned so late the previous night that they had not had time to confer about what had happened since the ambush.

"I'm not hungry yet."

He tapped her ribs. His fingers encountered firm, unyielding muscle. "Training is one thing. Endangering your health is another. You need some fat."

"I'll borrow some from my brain."

Alemar kept his fingers against her, trying to probe with his powers, trying to see within to judge the speed and degree of her recovery. He saw only a dark veil, heard only echoes of a hollow place inside himself. He shook. He tried to stifle it, but his knees kept wobbling. His hand quivered against her side.

"Please," he said, stricken. "I need for you to look after your body. I can't do it for you anymore."

She looked up suddenly. Tears welled in her eyes. Dried tracks of old weeping led down her cheeks. She'd been crying during her weapons practice. "I know. I'm so sorry," she squeaked, almost too hoarse to get the words out.

They embraced. The feel of her chin against the crook of his neck, the moisture of her tears on his skin, gave him a kind of solace entirely different from that which he received from Wynneth, though just as necessary. Elenya knew what it meant to be a child of the Blood, a rebel chased league upon league, year upon year, by an enemy who might live another five millennia. Despite their occasional bickering, and even though they were both so battered by circumstances that all they wanted to do was crawl into a crevice and abandon the world, they could not stop their concern or understanding for one another.

"I'll rest, I'll eat, I'll be good," she murmured. "I just need to practice."

"I know," he said. He wished he had something to occupy him the same way, a way to use the conflict to hone his talents, instead of draining them. They walked hand in hand back to the cottage.

"Where did you bury Dushin?" she asked as they crossed the threshold. As soon as they entered, Wynneth cracked blue, speckled eggs over the griddle. Cosufier, awake now, huddled in a fur near the fire, looking closer to his age than usual. The air smelled homey and revitalizing.

"We managed to send the body to his relatives in Yent," Alemar replied.

"And the attackers?"

"We dumped them in a ravine," Wynneth said, more matter-of-factly than Alemar could have managed. She had no problem being cold to anyone who threatened her loved ones. For that matter, it had been she and other members of the rebel band who had taken care of the details while Alemar was occupied first with Elenya's healing, and then with his own exhaustion. "We retrieved the food from the silk farm, and tried to eliminate any trace of your visit."

"We had more time than we expected," Alemar added. "Apparently Enns was not working with Puriel's men. He set up the ambush himself."

"That must be why there were only four. And why they were poorly armored," Elenya said reflectively.

"Yes," her brother answered. "I doubt Puriel knows about the ambush even now. Otherwise guards would be all over the silk farm."

Wynneth nodded. "Still, the place is not safe to use again. We don't know just who Enns contacted."

Alemar shook his head. "When Milec was captured, I suspected treachery. I never suspected Enns was the cause."

"The seed was planted a long time ago," Elenya murmured. "You remember back when we were still posing as Lord Dran's bastards, Enns would complain that we received more attention than we deserved?"

A few flickers of memory came back to Alemar, but he shoved them away. "Enough about him," he snapped.

Elenya stared, as if trying to read his mind, but their amulets were lying on the stool. Alemar almost gave in and fetched them. He and his sister had recovered enough energy by now to restore the jewels to their necks, though they would have to leave the gauntlets off for several more days. But he was not ready to open his thoughts so completely. When he let go of his anger, it would not be in the presence of loved ones.

As if sensing his need for distance, Elenya turned to Cosufier. "Grandfather, didn't you say that Puriel's patrols were searching near Eruth? Why would that be if Enns isn't the cause?"