Robin McKinley - The Hero And The Crown

“Scatter!” shouted Aerin, just as Tor’ bellowed, “’Ware!”

The folk before the gates had indeed smelled Maur’s foul miasma after the door of the treasure house was opened, and most of them lay or crouched wherever they had been when that dreadful wind had first blown over them. It had lifted a little since, but the days past had been too much, and once undiluted despair had touched them they found it hard to shake themselves free. They shifted a little now, at the voices, and the desperate urgency in them, and looked up.

The fire had burned down, for no one had had the strength of purpose to feed it since the treasure-house door opened. Maur’s skull struck the fire’s center, and the still smoldering branches flew in all directions, and the embers splashed like water; and while a few people cried out with sudden pain, there was too little fire to do much harm. The skull crashed into one of the fallen monoliths, which shattered, and then the black skull disappeared into the night, and there was a rumbling and an echo, like an avalanche, and the people, shaken out of their lethargy, looked around fearfully and wondered which way to run; but no mountains fell. The rumbling grew louder, till people put their hands over their ears, and Aerin and Tor knelt down in the roadway with their arms around each other. The rumbling became a roar, and then there was a sudden storm of wind from the battlefield, laden with the smell of death; but the death smell passed them and in its place came a hot, dry, harsh smell like nothing the green Hills of eastern Damar had ever known; but Tor raised his head from Aerin’s shoulder and said, “Desert. That’s the smell of the western desert.” And on the wind were small gritty particles, like sand.

Then the wind died, and the people murmured to one another; but though there was a half moon it shed no light through the thick shadows that hung over the battlefield. They built up the fire again, but not very large, for no one wanted to venture far to look for fuel; and they tended to each other’s burns, which all proved slight; and rounded up the horses again, who had been too tired to run far, even in terror.

Aerin and Tor stood up slowly and came into the firelight, and the rest of Aerin’s beasts came joyfully up to greet them, those that were still alive, for many of them had not left the battlefield. She blinked up at Tor for a moment and said: “What have you done with the Crown?”

Tor looked blank, then sheepish. “I left it in the treasure hall. Not such a bad place for it; it will be spending most of its time there anyway.”

Aerin felt a curious tickling sensation at the back of her throat. When she opened her mouth she discovered it was a laugh.

AERIN WOKE TWO DAYS later in her own bed in her father’s castle—Tor’s castle now. It was turning over that woke her; her muscles were so sore and stiff that her weariness was finally less than her aches and pains, and as she rolled onto her right shoulder she woke with a groan.

There was an immediate rustle from somewhere just beyond the bed curtains, and the curtains themselves were pushed back and daylight flooded in. Aerin couldn’t imagine where she was for a moment; her first thoughts were that wherever it was it was doubtless dangerous, and she groped vaguely for Gonturan’s hilt; instead her fingers buried themselves in a heavy fur ruff, and a long tongue licked her hand. She tried to sit up, and a voice, attached to the hands that had just parted the curtains, said brokenly, “Oh, my lady.” Aerin recognized Teka first, and then realized where she was, and then Teka bent down and buried her face in the bedclothes and sobbed.

“Teka,” Aerin said, horrified by her tears.

“My lady, I thought I should never see you again,” Teka muttered without lifting her face, but when Aerin tentatively patted a shoulder and smoothed the sleek black-and-grey head, Teka sat back on her heels, sniffed, and said, “Well, I am seeing you again, and have been seeing you again now for two and a half days, and I am very sorry to have been so silly. You’ll want food and a bath.”

“Two and a half days?” Aerin repeated.

“Two and a half days. Tor-sola is not awake yet.”

Aerin smiled. “And, of course, you’ve been sitting in that chair”—she nodded at a high-backed wooden chair with a pillow propped up for the waiter’s back and neck, and a cushioned footrest, and a small table with sewing paraphernalia tidily arranged on it—“the whole time.”

Teka opened her eyes wide in the old way that had so terrorized the very young Aerin caught out at some misbehavior. “Of course. Bath or a meal first?”

Aerin considered. Even the muscles that made her tongue move and her jaw open and shut to speak and her lips smile hurt. “Malak, very hot, and a very hot bath first, and then food.” There was a thrashing behind her and a long pointed face poked over her shoulder. “And food for this one, too. She’ll skip the bath. Where are the rest of them?”

Teka scowled. “Wherever it pleases them to lay themselves. I did manage to herd them all into your rooms, lady, and the back hall; they terrify all the staff and most of the court. But they won’t leave—and, well, I for one am capable of acknowledging that we owe them a debt, and loyalty is very admirable even in mute beasts, but,” she said in a tone of suppressed rage. “I do not approve of animals sharing their sol’s bed.” The yerig queen yawned widely, and then a long piece of black shadow stood up from the still curtained foot of the bed, stretched himself, and flowed off the bed to the floor. He leaned against the backs of Teka’s legs and began to purr and, to Aerin’s delight, a slow flush crept up Teka’s throat and face.

“I’m glad not everyone in my father’s house is terrified by my friends,” said Aerin.

“No, my lady,” Teka said in a low voice. The king cat poked his head around Teka’s waist to smile smugly at Aerin, and Aerin said, “You know, my wild friends, if you are planning to move in with me permanently, you will have to have names. If you live in a house, you are domesticated, and if you are domesticated, you must be named.” The yerig sitting beside her licked her ear.

Aerin began the long excruciating process of getting out of bed; she felt that she would never move easily again. “I’ll help you, my lady,” said Teka, as Aerin touched her feet to the floor and hissed involuntarily. Teka was thinner than she had been when Aerin saw her last, and as Teka put out a hand to help her, Aerin saw a long bandage wrapped around her forearm under her sleeve. She jerked her eyes away and looked up at Teka’s face again. “Must you call me lady?” she said crossly. “You never did before.”

Teka looked at her oddly. “I know that perfectly well,” she said. “If you’re up. I’ll look to your bath.”

The hot water helped the deeper aches but just about killed the blisters, and Aerin herself with them. She padded the back of the bath with two or three towels so that she could at least lie softly; and after three cups of very strong malak she dared climb out of the bath. Teka laid her down on a cushioned bench and rubbed a little more of the soreness out with the help of some astringent solution (that smelted, of course, very strongly of herbs) that was even worse than the hot water on blisters; Aerin shrieked.

“Quiet,” said Teka remorselessly. She finished by smoothing on a silky pale ointment that almost made up for the astringent, as Aerin told her. “Your adventures have made you no more polite, Aerin-sol,” Teka said with asperity.

“You could not possibly have hoped for so much,” Aerin responded as she eased into the undershift Teka had laid out for her.