Dave Smeds - The Schemes of Dragons

The band paused while Elenya, Solint, and the others on the hilltop stared southward. A rabbit bounded across the grass, startling Wynneth; she had inadvertently stepped on its burrow. Elenya came down the slope at a less hectic pace than when she had ascended. Wynneth released a pent-up breath. Whatever Solint had spotted was apparently not cause for panic.

Elenya dispatched men to the flanks of the southern approach to the camp, ordering them to conceal themselves. She told the others to wait to break camp. "It's one rider. He's making straight for us. Let's see what he has to say for himself."

Archers lined up on one side of the path, arrows ready. The rider continued without slackening his pace, between the hidden ambushers, over the concealing rise to where the bowmen and the rest of the rebel camp waited. Only when he was well within range of the arrows did he rein up.

Elenya stepped to the front, a hundred paces away from him, rapier out. Her gauntlet glowed even in the daylight.

Thick dust, broken by sweat tracks, coated the rider's swarthy face, his raven hair tufted and scattered by the wind. A young man, he wore a loose-fitting violet robe, embroidered in the intricate whorls and geometric patterns common to the Eastern Deserts, very similar to that decorating the white Zyraii garb Elenya, by coincidence, wore that day. He carried a scimitar on his belt, as well as a demonblade, and a small recurved bow projected from the rear of his saddle.

He raised his hands to show his lack of drawn weapons, inclined his head toward the archers, and called out to Elenya in a voice rendered hoarse from long, dry travelling. Wynneth did not understand the language.

Elenya frowned, and haltingly responded in the same tongue. "Let him approach," she told her band.

The rider dismounted, left his weary mount to nibble at the nearest clump of grass, and walked forward. He moves with the grace of a dancer, thought Wynneth. It was remarkable considering how stiff he should have been from the ride. The grime quite possibly hid a handsome face. As he neared, he unhooked a scroll canister from his belt, which he held out to Elenya. He kept a respectful three paces distant.

Elenya hesitated. Wynneth guessed why and stepped closer. Finally the princess slipped the parchment from the container and unrolled it. Glyphs that Wynneth recognized as Zyraii characters appeared, the brown ink rendered almost black against the wheat-colored surface.

Elenya's eyes went wide. Wynneth could no longer stand it. "Is it from Lonal?" she blurted.

Elenya chuckled wistfully. "No. This man is a Surudainese. But the message is from Zyraii."

Wynneth blinked. "How did he find us?"

"The scroll led him." Elenya held it out, and translated: I can feel his pain even at this distance. Retreat will not cure him. But there is a way. Ask him to heal you. If he questions you, mention the name Ilyrra. He will understand what he must do.-Gast.

"Gast?" Wynneth whispered. "Alemar's teacher?"

"Yes."

"What does it mean?"

"Alemar will have to answer that." Elenya called over to the camp women. "This man has ridden hard. Feed him, give him wash water and shade to rest under. Someone should groom his oeikani." She spoke to the man. He nodded and went to enjoy the hospitality.

"Coming?" Elenya asked as she started for the cave.

Wynneth nearly stumbled over her sister-in-law's heels in her haste.

ELENYA FELT HEALTHY. The wounds from the ambush and the attack on Puriel's fortress no longer troubled her. It seemed odd to ask her brother to heal her.

"I can't," he said. "What brought you up here to ask that?"

"Word from an old friend. He said to mention the name Ilyrra."

Alemar stood up suddenly. "You've word from Gast? How?"

"I don't know how the messenger crossed the sea, but he found us." She handed him the scroll.

Alemar poured over it. "It's definitely his calligraphy. A Zee-no-ken could have helped him charm the parchment, so that it was drawn to me. Yes. Look. There's a strand of hair woven into the fringe-mine, no doubt. We kept samples of each other's hair and blood for use in certain healing spells."

Elenya was encouraged to see Alemar so alert and involved. "What did he mean? Why do I need to be healed?"

"You don't, exactly," Alemar said. "But we all suffer the affliction of being who we are. Most of us muddle through as best we can, even though we could benefit from care. Gast is suggesting that I perform a very special type of healing, like that I did for Ilyrra, a Sholi slave girl."

Elenya frowned. "How are you going to do it? Your power is drained."

"So I believe. But if Gast says that Retreat will not help me, I believe him. Shall we try his way?"

Elenya shrugged. "It seems little enough to endure."

Alemar smoothed his long hair back. "That's where you're wrong."

They erected a tent at the far end of the valley, under the shade of two old oaks, in view of the rest of the encampment, but secluded by the distance. They stocked it with a three-day supply of water and food, and Alemar left strict orders that no one was to approach the site unless an emergency arose, such as the arrival of Omril and his army. By dusk, only Wynneth remained with them, until, giving her a hearty embrace, he asked her to leave as well.

"No matter what sounds you hear through the cloth, no one is to disturb us. If I need help, I'll step outside to call for it."

She nodded, kissed him, and left, though Elenya could tell she wanted to stay.

Alemar closed the flap, shutting out the sunset. In the light of the single lamp, his eyes seemed fathoms deep. Elenya involuntarily stepped back.

"What's next?" she asked a little faster than she meant to.

"Clothes off," he said, doffing his shoes.

Elenya undressed more slowly than usual, feeling inhibited, which was strange, because she and her brother had never been shy about being naked together. They had bathed together only an hour before, and she had given the nudity no notice whatsoever. Perhaps it was his gaze, which seemed to penetrate more deeply than ever before, even into regions not shared during their mindspeech.

"Lie down on the blanket," he said, his voice soft and soothing. "On your stomach."

She lowered herself, wrapping her hair, still damp from the bath, into a tail and placing it so that it would not be in her face. The blanket, and the mat beneath it, gave her just the right combination of firm support and cushioning.

Alemar began massaging her. He cupped her toes to warm them, wiggled and slid a finger between each digit. He pressed the side of his thumb firmly into the calluses on her soles, working out the kinks. He alternated with a light, finger-tip stroke. As he reached her ankles, she sighed with pleasure.

He continued up each leg, over tissue sore from the kicking exercises. She hovered at the delicate point between pain and relief. He kneaded her leg muscles until they turned to jelly. She had not realized until now how stiff she had been. He was finding layers of aches, drumming out the stress of the long flight northward, and the battle before that.

By the time he reached her torso, she was almost crying. He gathered small areas of her skin and released, he pressed gently on her lower vertebrae until they shifted, he pounded lightly until the broad muscles of her back let go of their tension. He used fingertips, palms, elbows, forearms, forehead-even his hair, with which he brushed her backside with broad, feathery strokes.

"Where did you learn this?" she murmured.

"No talk. Relax."

She eagerly obeyed. Presently she realized that his movements followed the rhythm of her breathing, first in obvious ways, then with increasing subtlety. Something else was happening, too. Something in the touch itself, the human to human contact. She had never been so aware of the healing nature of hands upon her. It ceased to matter if he were her brother, or a lover, or a stranger-the rightness flowing from his body to hers was palpable, deep-seated, and intense.