10x04
In the silence, Savina felt a tingling on her lips and for the briefest moment, dreamed it was a kiss . . .
Whistling wind. Pounding rain. A choked scream. A cry of fury. Grunts of effort. A groan, beside her.
Her face was wet. Her body was cold, shivering. She pulled at her cloak and felt the armor under it.
She did not want to open her eyes.
That groan, she thought, sounded like Tavi . . .
TAVI! All at once, Savina realized what was happening, where she was. The Spring . . . we ruined it . . .
She forced her eyes open.
What she saw was worse than anything she could have imagined. The pond beside her, no longer a holy spring, was mottled with mud. The rain washed red rivulets of blood down its small banks to mingle with its plain, cold water. Across its banks, Rose knelt crumpled, crying, huddled small.
The ground seemed littered with allies. Kormick . . . Arden . . . Twiggy . . .Tavi . . . Mena was kneeling over Twiggy, screaming at her limp body, ordering it to move. Nyoko was firing, two arrows at a time, across the field. Dwarves and derro clashed wildly, a whir of axes and anger.
There were more derro downed than friends -- but more derro alive than downed. Two riders still atop their beasts. One beast snarling free. Archers . . . footsoldiers . . . the leader, striding about in his creepy armor.
So wrong, so . . . sad . . . Alirria, forgive us. Forgive us. For . . . her glance fell again on Tavi, his throat and chest and side pierced by arrows, blood flowing from his neck . . .
. . . TAVI! Savina’s mind snapped into action. Alirria, help us. She knelt and prayed, and felt Alirria’s healing power inside her once more. Alirria, goddess of mercy, still gave her strength despite the day’s betrayal. Savina pulled the arrows from Tavi’s body and touched him, staunching the blood flow, pushing Alirria’s strength into him. He groaned. That’s it, thought Savina.
“Tavi?”
His eyes opened and he looked up at her. “You’re all right,” he said.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
He pushed himself up, bracing himself against his sword, and tested his legs. He looked across the pond at Rose. Then he lunged forward toward one of the riders.
Savina looked up. The leader was pointing at her, saying something.
No! Pain coursed through her head and body. It felt as if her brain were freezing, pulling away from her skull . . . she closed her eyes and grasped at her head, struggling to concentrate. The others need my help!
###
Arden knew what it felt like when you'd been knocked out for a little while. She also knew what it felt like you were almost dead.
This was the latter. There was a tightness in her chest, a ringing in her head—a few moments longer, she thought, and maybe I’d have been out forever.
She knew the mottled sounds and fuzzy thoughts of coming back, and she knew: there’s only one way to stay alive when it’s like this, when they’re coming after you, when they’ve beaten you too many times.
You play dead.
As she lay there, face down in the mud and grass, the sounds became clearer. Amidst the rain and wind, she recognized them, one by one. A scream of agony from Twiggy. Savina’s desperate cry of “Tavi!” and an even more desperate cry of pain. The clash of swords and axes. A battle cry from Tavi. The whoosh of arrows. Mena’s voice: “You trained for this too, Twiggy! If you don’t get up now, SHE WINS!” She didn’t hear Kormick’s voice. There was a scuffling sound behind her, a grunt, and the twang of a bow. One of them was standing right behind her.
It hurt to lie there, listening. It always hurt to play dead when others were in trouble. But you can’t save anyone if you can’t save yourself, she thought. She listened again for Kormick’s voice, and again, it wasn’t there. She felt an old, familiar surge of fury at her own powerlessness—
Then Arden remembered what she had realized back in the derro caves, when she saw the slaves. This time, I’m armed.
She slid her hand down along the ground. The sling was there, beneath her.
In one motion, she grabbed the sling and a rock, sat up, spun around, and released the rock at the derro archer behind her. The sudden attack caught the archer completely off guard. He fell.
Arden took stock of the situation. Mena was stumbling, bleeding hard, but still fighting. Savina was crumpled in pain. Nyoko was concealed in the bushes at the edge of the clearing, picking off derro archers one by one. Rose was hunched on the other side of the pond. The dwarves were holding off a few of the derro footsoldiers. Twiggy was casting—Mena’s words must have worked—and Tavi’s blade burned green as he cut into a lizard and rider.
Kormick lay on the ground a few yards away, unmoving, bleeding. An arrow pierced his thigh and gashes clawed across his chest. There was no way Savina would be able to get to him. The spellcaster had incapacitated the Blessed Daughter, and anyway, there was a lizard between her and Kormick who would cut her to shreds if she tried.
Crouching low, dodging arrows, Arden rushed toward Kormick. I can do this, she thought. I've patched up plenty of cuts, bruises, scrapes—
—My gods, this sucking chest wound looks nothing like them.
She ripped off part of her wet cloak and pressed against Kormick’s chest. It instantly became soaked in blood. Arden tore another piece and tried again, hunching down to avoid arrows overhead.
Nyoko hit the derro leader. He stumbled. Twiggy cast. Mena and Tavi fought the last remaining lizard and rider. Arden pressed the cloth into Kormick’s chest, and spoke to him. “Justicar, don’t die. Please.”
The rider slashed at Mena. She fell. Savina rushed to her side.
The cloths were soaked, but Kormick’s bleeding seemed to slow a bit. “Come on, Alleged,” she muttered.
She didn't think it was her imagination: he didn't look so deathly pale anymore. Just then, a bolt from the derro leader zinged past her head, barely missing her and her patient. She picked up a stone from the ground, fixed it in her sling, and, rising, hurled it at the derro leader with all her remaining strength. It hit him, square in the eye.
He fell like the dead, and Arden smiled.
Then she pushed the emotion aside, knowing she should hope he wasn't dead, given the day. She knelt again to keep pressure on Kormick's chest.
The last remaining archers saw what happened, and turned to run. Tavi chased after them. He whacked one in the back and it fell, knocking the other down as it went. The lizard and rider, reeling from their injuries, turned to run. Twiggy cast, and they fell.
Kormick’s eyes fluttered open. He tried to sit up, put his hand to his crossbow, and fired into a tree.
Arden put her hand on his shoulder gently and pressed it to the ground. “You need to rest, Justicar,” she said, “Kettenek’s justice is upon you.” She glanced at his pierced thigh. “Also an arrow.”
###
We’ve won, Twiggy thought, as the wind died down and the rain slowed to a drizzle.
Winning is supposed to feel good.
Rose was across the pond, still crying. Twiggy walked around the pond. “Rose.” Twiggy put her hand around her friend’s shoulder. “We’re safe. It’ll be okay.”
Rose looked up, her face red and swollen from crying. She had never before looked quite so wet, Twiggy thought, and slowly, silently, they walked back to the other side of the pond. Tavi met them partway. Mena was gathering derro and lizards, tying them up so they couldn’t escape when they came to. The dwarves were tending to each other. They had held their own in the battle, but were cut and bruised.
Rose's comrades gathered near Kormick, who lay on the ground, weak, wrapped in bloody makeshift bandages.
“We didn’t kill anyone,” said Mena, when she was done. At least there’s that, thought Twiggy.
“But . . . what I felt when we entered the clearing . . . the holiness . . . it’s gone,” said Savina. “We ruined it.”
“The derro ruined it,” Nyoko corrected her.
“I ruined it,” said Tavi, and looked down at his sword, still streaked with blood.
“It wasn’t you or the derro,” said Rose, quietly. “You know that. You know who destroyed it.”
Twiggy put her arm around Rose again and—for once—didn’t say anything. She knew they had done the right thing, that they had honored Alirria, that they had done their best…but this feeling, she thought, you can’t reason that away.
###
“That’s Dolax,” said Nyoko, as she, Mena, and Savina checked on the bound derro.
“Which one?” asked Mena.
“The leader, Dolax. He’s the leader for all the derro.” Nyoko spat with disgust.
A few of the derro were stirring. Savina was—of all the ridiculous things to do—binding their wounds. Nyoko understood that the heathens believed that this was a holy day for the godling Alirria—even Sovereigns celebrated Alirria Ascendant, now that worship of the godlings was permitted—and she understood that the heathens believed that killing on this day was wrong. She had honored their tradition in the battle by shooting only to subdue, not to kill. But healing them? Nyoko asked herself. People must die on Alirria Ascendant, sometimes. We couldn’t just let them die? Surely that is different from killing them.
Mena dragged Dolax by his moustache to the edge of the pool and loosened his gag. The mud beneath his feet was soaked in blood. “This—” Mena pointed at the ground “—this is the blood of your comrades. This is the blood of my comrades. This—” she gestured to the pool and the clearing “—this is the place you destroyed.”
Dolax set his jaw, stoic and defiant. Nyoko kicked him in the balls.
“You will tell us,” Mena went on, “what led you here.” Her armor hissed and snarled and she gripped his topknot, pulling his head back and forcing him to his knees. A hint of fear crept into his eyes.
“Search parties,” he said, “look for you. Mine not only one. Others lose trail. Birds not see you. We find you by chance.”
Mena dragged him back to the pile of bound derro and threw him down.
“We’ll deal with them tomorrow,” Tavi said, when Mena and Nyoko returned to report.
The Justicar was sitting up, weakly. Savina had healed some of his wounds, but he still needed rest. “So…” he began, “Sedellus is done with us now, no?”
Mena looked at him and shook her head. “Adorable.”
“I heard a few bits of prophecy,” volunteered Twiggy.
“So did I,” came a chorus of responses.
And they all sat down to figure out what the Goddess had told them.
