And then the young witch pulled away Lennard’s bandages and attacked the wound with fury. Her hands burned as soon as they came into contact with the rotting skin, but Rhiannon grimaced away the pain and held her ground. Behind the closed lids of her eyes, she could envision the battle in imaginary embodiments: a grotesque lump of disease, with sickly stumps of arms reaching out to smother her, and she slapped back with hands that glowed of the earth’s power, a hiss of ugly smoke bursting from the bulbous fiend’s form with each strike. They went back and forth in their struggles for many minutes. The monster lump almost smothered her in its wretched hug on several occasions. But each time the resilient witch beat the thing back, and gradually it began to shrink and lose its form.
Rhiannon did not know how much time had passed, minutes or hours, when she again opened her eyes. She was lying across the waist of the young man. She was incredibly weary and her hands hurt still, but she knew that those ills would eventually pass. And to her heartfelt relief, Rhiannon saw that Lennard’s misery would also pass. He rested comfortably now, all hints of his fever gone and a look of genuine peace etched on his young face. The wound was still wicked, but the infection had been fully beaten and it seemed that the leg would heal cleanly.
With great effort Rhiannon pulled herself up to her feet. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to fall down on a cot and sleep.
But another battle had been fought that afternoon across the Four Bridges, small but vicious, and more groups of pitiful refugees had no doubt found their way across the river. Rhiannon knew without even looking beyond the tent flap that the line of wounded had been renewed.
After a short, impromptu nap curled up on the floor beside the bed of her last patient, Rhiannon emerged into the brightening morning sun of the next day. Siana and Jolsen were just outside her tent, waiting anxiously but patiently for her.
“How is he?” Siana was quick to ask.
“Comfortable,” Rhiannon replied with a smile. “Suren ’twas a wicked disease that put its claws into him, but me thinks he’s fought the thing away. He’s a brave lad, and not to be giving up.”
“And he had a bit of help,” Siana said, her eyes rimmed with tears and her hand resting easily on Rhiannon’s arm.
“A bit, perhaps,” Rhiannon admitted.
“Can we go to him?” asked Jolsen.
“Ye can, though I’m not for knowing if he’ll hear yer words.” Jolsen started off toward the tent flap, but Rhiannon motioned for Siana to stay behind.
“I will join you in a moment,” the young girl said to Jolsen.
“Ye spoke a name that I’m wanting to hear more about,” Rhiannon explained after Jolsen had disappeared into the tent.
Siana did not understand.
“Bryan,” Rhiannon explained. “Do ye know o’ the lad?”
“Indeed I do,” replied Siana. “We were companions, all of us.” Her eyes dropped and her voice came out barely as a whisper. “Along with ten others who did not escape when the talons came. I, too, would now lie dead in the Baerendels if not for Bryan.”
“Why did he not cross with the rest of ye?”
Siana’s gaze instinctively went to the dark form of the distant mountain range.
“He felt there was more that needed to be done,” she replied. “Many others have spoken of his deeds in helping them across the river since the night we came in; it would seem that he was right.”
“He must be a brave lad,” Rhiannon remarked, watching the young girl’s distant gaze. Siana’s eyes sparkled at the compliment, as surely as if Rhiannon had aimed it at her.
“Oh, he is,” she said. “His father is-was-an elven warrior. He fought at the Battle of Mountaingate beside Arien Silverleaf himself. It seems that he passed a measure of his valor to his son.”
“Bryan’s an elf?” Rhiannon asked, startled. She did not think that many elves lived in the southland, so far from Illuma Vale.
“Half-elf,” Siana explained. “His father married a human woman, but she died when Bryan was very young. Bryan and his father stayed on in Corning.”
“Meriwindle!” Rhiannon exclaimed, putting the pieces together as she recalled the valiant elf she had met when she and the rangers ventured into the town.
“You know him?”
“ ’Twas in Corning we met,” said Rhiannon, “on the very morn-” She held the rest of her thought to herself, not wanting to evoke any more unpleasant memories in the battle-weary girl.
“I believe that he died bravely,” Siana remarked, steeling her jaw.
“Me guess’d be the same,” Rhiannon assured her, and she let a few moments of silence slip by, seeing Siana deep in private thoughts, her gaze distant, to the west.
“How long do ye think he’ll be staying out there?” the young witch asked when Siana finally looked back at her.
“Until he has done his work,” Siana said grimly. She still held her jaw firm. “Or until the talons finally catch him.” She looked at Rhiannon squarely, her hands unconsciously clenching her sides.
“But know this,” she continued in the same determined tone. “Bryan will do more than his share in the war.”
“He has already,” Rhiannon was quick to put in.
“And a hundred talons and more will wish he had crossed the river with the rest of us!”
Rhiannon dropped a hand on Siana’s shoulder to steady the young girl. “Go to yer friend,” she said, glancing over at the tent flap. “Suren he’ll be looking for yer face when again he finds the strength to open his eyes.”
The tension eased out of Siana’s expression. “Thank you,” she said to Rhiannon. “For everything.”
And then she was gone, and Rhiannon was left alone in that empty spot on the field, gazing across the river, wondering how many more brave deeds this newfound hero would perform before a talon sword found his heart.
The cloaked body of the talon rose slowly in the tree. High above it, his feet planted firmly on thick branches and his back against the trunk, Bryan pulled and tugged on the rope, looping it farther over a branch every time he gained an inch of slack. It took the half-elf nearly a half hour to get the dead talon into place, but he knew that the decoy would be worth the trouble if he was discovered.
Then, on the lower branches, Bryan spent another half hour setting the heavy crossbow into place and checking the tension on the trip line. He suspected that none of these precautions would be necessary, but he had survived this long by keeping all of his options open. In the wilds that had formerly been western Calva, carelessness would surely bring his doom.
Back in his high perch, Bryan looked out to the west beyond the copse to the shadow of an outcropping of rocks and a small cluster of houses. Talons now occupied the little settlement, Bryan knew, for every now and then one of the filthy things peeked its head over the wall surrounding the houses. On the field outside the wall, a dozen or so talon corpses lay stretched out in the morning sun, carrion for the vultures. The frontiersmen hadn’t fled from this settlement, not all of them anyway, and they had apparently taken their share of invaders before they were overrun.
Bryan shuddered as he thought of the grim fate those people must have met when their defenses finally collapsed. Talons were not a merciful bunch.
“But they shall be avenged,” the half-elf vowed to the empty wind, and he looked to the east. Talons were not overly fond of daylight, he knew, and when the shadows of the outcropping slipped away as the sun rose higher in the sky, the activity along the settlement wall diminished. Bryan crept in along the rocks, making a complete circuit of the place, and saw only one guard, cowl pulled low and leaning heavily-probably asleep, Bryan thought-against a wooden beam.
The young warrior drew back on his bowstring, taking deadly aim. Bryan held the shot and reconsidered. Still the talon did not move; perhaps he could get in closer for a less risky strike.