SEVEN - Luvon
Everything had started out just fine.
My attention had been requested in the Military Quarter and I assumed it had to do with the housing issues facing us at present. In the aftermath of the attack most of the Military Quarter had burned and citizens were already complaining about the number of soldiers sleeping in the grass, in alleys, on benches, carts, and any other elevated surface they could find. If I had known what was really going on I would have warned Hanna.
The quarter was already in chaos when I arrived. Men loaded carts and horses whinnied as saddles were thrown over their backs, men jumping on them almost as fast as they could get them saddled and then running out the gates. One of the rifts we'd been surveying had finally opened up and the Seelie were pouring out of it bringing with them the same tainted magick that had all-but destroyed our realm. In the fray Zinvaris appeared with my horse and told me it wasn't that far, that I should ride out and have a look for myself and be back before nightfall. I took his word for it and left with Fentris.
After we had ridden for a few hours I wondered what Zinvaris' game was. Was he really so stupid he didn't know how many hours it would take us to ride so far? I guess it wouldn't have surprised me if he was that daft after all. We crested a hill and could see the convoy of carts and horses ahead of us stretching miles into the desert.
"We won't be back by nightfall, boss," Fentris told me grimly. "What do you want me to do?"
I decided we would both ride on. Hanna would be fine for one night, I reasoned, and tomorrow we could return once we were certain the soldiers were sufficiently prepared, briefed, and pep-talked.
Things never seem to work out the way I plan.
I discovered that everyone else was as ill-prepared as I was. None of us had been given any information except orders to go, and no one knew who the orders had actually come from. The men assumed it was me. I assumed it was General Krana. He, of course, didn't bother to come with us.
I spent the rest of that night into the early morning hours trying to make order out of the chaos. Just as I thought I might rest for a few hours before riding home, mage fire erupted on the horizon. Out in the open it was easy to find the mage. Summoning the fire took time and illuminated the mage below, and even the best mage isn't immune to a volley of arrows. Just as the men began to cheer another ball of mage fire lit the sky. They'd light up, we'd shoot them down. Over and over for hours--until we ran out of arrows.
"Something is wrong," I told Fentris, but he had no more ideas about it than I had. I was exhausted already and so was everyone else.
The camp quickly became a place of misery. Most of us suffered burns, some surviving even though they shouldn't have. The cold was nearly unbearable without our winter uniforms, and snow fell off and on each evening, compounding our discomfort. The officers fought with each other until there were hardly any of them left and the chain of command collapsed as groups were cut off from us entirely by the throngs of Seelie warriors.
I did everything I could. It wasn't enough.
By the afternoon of the third day it was clear to me that we were defeated, but the enemy we fought against would never accept a white flag. They were hellbent on our destruction. I only had one idea left but it was a very long shot and I would need Fentris to do it.
"We need a tempest," I told him, panting to catch my breath in the midst of the battle. Fentris nodded. "I need you to go get Bah--" I caught myself, "Lieutenant Jofiel, and bring her here." He saluted and turned to leave, but I grabbed his arm. I needed him to reassure me he could do it.
"Please," I begged him, "do everything you can to get her here safely."
"Don't worry," he grinned, "nobody rides as fast as me."
That turned out to be the last time he would say that.
Barely an hour later a messenger arrived carrying a scrap of parchment for me.
The cartographer succumbed to her infection this morning.
I stood in the middle of the battlefield reading it over and over. I was numb to everything around me. How could this be? She seemed to be fine when I left. Didn't she use her medicine while I was away? I thought about how little she had eaten in my presence--had she stopped entirely? Did she overexert herself and --
I had just sent my best man away on a fruitless quest.
At least he wouldn't die here, I thought, but everything else was lost. We would lose Damaqas, Jiyya, Dosan, and anything else nearby in a matter of days. It was probably best that Hanna wasn't alive to see it. That's what I kept telling myself as I took my anger out on the Seelie warriors that threw themselves at me. I no longer felt how tired I was, or how hungry, or how much I ached. I felt nothing. I had ruined everything, and I was a pit of regret. I hated that I hadn't shown her how I felt, that I had been scared to do so, that she had died feeling my feigned indifference.
I should have quit and taken her away from here.
I shouldn't have come here at all.
The misery grew and amplified through the frigid evening. We fought, although I knew we fought for nothing. The Seelie wouldn't let us walk off the battlefield alive. If I ordered a retreat now it would only change what side of our bodies the final blows were delivered upon. There were too many men who were too injured to flee and we would have to leave them behind and accept that they would all be dead by
sunrise. I ran every possible scenario through my head, retreating to my tent to cry in private. I couldn't even tell myself my wife was safe at home.
Dead.
I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket and looked at it again.
Who sent me this fucking thing anyway?
I wondered.
Why would they risk a messenger just to tell me my wife is dead?
No one had signed it and the messenger vanished as soon as he delivered it, so questioning him was impossible. What would I do if I knew who had sent it? It wasn't like I was going to have the opportunity to punch him ever again.
I crumpled it up and put it back in my pocket, then stormed out of my tent to meet my end head-on. At least I might see her again in the Summerlands.
Hanna
I screamed as the other rider reached into the brush and tried to pull me out. I pulled out one of my knives and stabbed at him, nicking him once before he cried out at me to stop.
"Oi, you stupid girl," he hollered, and I knew instantly from the country accent it was Fentris. "I'm trying to take you to your husband, stop it!"
I fell out of the bushes and scrambled to hug him.
"We don't have a lot of time, and you were lucky I was able to catch your horse!" He was very angry with me, understandably. However, I didn't feel all that lucky that he'd caught my horse.
"Your stirrups are too long," he told me as he boosted me into the saddle. "Your knees should be bent, a lot easier to hold onto the horse that way."
"You hold on with your legs?" I asked, incredulous.
"Well yeah," he said, annoyed, "how else would you hold on? With your hands?" He scoffed as he adjusted my saddle. It was a lot more comfortable this way, I had to admit, but I still wasn't sure I could keep up with Fentris. When I told him as much he jumped on his horse and pointed his finger at me.
"Your husband is about to die. You're going to ride faster than me, because you're smaller and you slow the horse down less. And if you don't, I'm going to whip your horse until it's so afraid of me it runs anyway."
My mouth was still hanging open when he bellowed at my horse. I didn't understand it, but the horse did, and whether I wanted it or not I was getting a lesson in riding like Fentris. I tried to hold on with my legs and my hands, and if I could have figured out a way to do it, I would have tried using my teeth as well. Fentris yelled directions and I did my best to do as he instructed. I leaned out over the horse's neck instead of sitting up straight and before I even knew it I was out of earshot of Fentris. I had totally lost track of how far I had ridden and had no idea how far I still had to go, but I finally sensed that I was making progress and had confirmation that I was heading in the right direction. When I forgot how terrified I was my heart soared with the horse and I hoped against hope that we would reach Von in time.
I lost track of the miles before we crested a hill and I could see down into the sand-filled valley. Mage fire poured down from the sky onto the men below. Everything else was chaos and too far away to see in any detail. I knew we didn't have mages like that, so I roughly kicked my horse's ribs until it found another speed and focused all my rage on the mages that I could see. Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky, occasionally licking down and picking off a mage. Gradually the sounds of battle grew and I wondered how the Hell anyone knew what was going on.
As I approached the Seelie became easier to spot. They were beautiful, almost too beautiful, their faces radiant with emotion as they slaughtered the Unseelie warriors. I realized lightning was too dangerous to use on them. They were all engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Unseelie warriors and I risked zapping as many Unseelie as I did Seelie. I could just imagine lightning shooting from one sword to another, killing two warriors when I only intended to kill one. I would have to think of something else but I was running out of time.
Things were worse than I imagined when Fentris told me Luvon was about to die. It seemed like there were almost no Unseelie warriors left and I felt as though I still had miles to ride. As fast as my horse flew it wasn't fast enough. I decided to throw caution to the wind and threw down a few more lightning bolts hoping to send a message.
It worked. It worked
too
well.
