Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) (3 page)

The sacred incantations were already on her lips as she quickly borrowed Thaydor’s knife, raised her left forearm, and cut herself. She clenched her fist, wincing, and felt the hot blood run between her fingers. She concentrated harder on the prayers, speaking the short lines over and over again, becoming them.

“Vincit tenebris lux, amor vincit mortem…”

Eyes closed, she began to sway slightly, the power of the Light intensifying as it took hold of her, tingling in her veins. When she unclenched her hand again and opened her eyes, still repeating the incantation, even she was amazed to see how the blood pooling in her palm glistened. The great red droplets glowed with ruby sparkles as the magic activated. She reached out her hand and let the light-spangled blood from her slashed forearm drip into Thaydor’s open head wound.

Her blood mingled with his, an offering freely given. Now there was only one momentous step left, and after the tales she had heard, she was scared to do it, but she blocked out the fear, whispering the words over and over endlessly.

“Vincit tenebris lux, amor vincit mortem…”

Light conquers darkness, love conquers death…

Heart pounding, she lowered her lips to his and kissed him.

For a moment, she lingered with her mouth pressed softly to his, her warm breath mingling with his pained, shallow panting. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and willed all her healing power, her very life force, into him.

In the shattering blast of Light between them, the transfer took place. Radiance flashed out of all the places where he had been broken and torn while a wave of crimson pain washed through her. Wrynne gasped, sitting up with a small cry.

Nothing could have prepared her for the next few seconds as agony unfurled and then wrapped around her like a cloak.

She threw her head back, a scream tearing from her lips as the physical pain of Thaydor’s wounds bloomed like evil flowers through her body, though she did not suffer the actual damage.

Even so, it was far worse than she could have imagined. First came the sensation of fire scorching up her left arm. Next, the arrow plunged into her side. She gasped at how real it seemed; she could almost feel the tip deep inside her innards. She tasted blood.

Third, a bone-cracking bash to the side of her leg knocked her to the ground. She felt his moment of panic, the loss of control as the enemies closed in—then blinding pain crashing down on top of her head.

Last, like the double knock of doom at the door, a sickening
thud, thud
to her torso that folded her over in agony, robbed her of breath.

The world started going black. Dark as the grave.

Obsidian terror swallowed her up.

Whether the fairies kept their word, whether the
Kiss of Life
spell had even worked, Wrynne did not know.

She simply passed out.

Chapter 2

Sanctuary

W
ake up!
Wake up, Daughter. Danger approaches…

Wrynne paid the subtle inner warning no mind. Hours had passed, and she twitched fitfully on her pillow, absorbed in a strange dream.

The black-clad man knew no mercy, stealthy as the wind. Onyx eyes burned above the black scarf swathed across the lower half of his face as he slipped into the gate tower, climbed the winding stairs without a sound, and killed the sentries on duty, cutting the throats of some and coolly shooting others with arrows from the large bow he’d worn slung across his back.

Hurry! He’s coming.

But she couldn’t look away as the assassin, moving briskly and methodically, threw the sentries’ bodies over the massive outer wall of the kingdom. The clatter of their landing got the attention of a band of twenty Urmugoths who’d made camp on the moors a few hundred yards out from the North Gates.

The assassin lit a final arrow off a torch on the wall, and with a taunting glitter of satisfaction in those jet-black eyes, he fired it up into the sky.

Wrynne watched it fly on a great burning arc through the night—and land at the Urmugoths’ feet. The brutes looked up with belligerent grunts, snorts, and guttural curses. A few jumped to their feet.

Oh, no, please don’t
, she begged the ruthless killer with a whimper in her sleep.
Don’t do it.

Her protests were futile.

Flipping the bow behind him again, he marched over and seized hold of the great wooden windlass that worked the gates. Putting his back into it, the broad-shouldered stranger carried out a task that usually took three men to accomplish. He opened the gates of the kingdom and then got out of there.

Meanwhile, the Urmugoth band drew closer to investigate their open invitation into Veraidel.

Before melting back into the forest shadows, the assassin paused at the tree line to make sure his mission was complete. He tugged the mask down, and she glimpsed his face, beautiful but sinister, saw the grim curve of his half-smile as he watched the Urmugoths come storming in. Then he vanished into the night.

Wake up, NOW!

Wrynne sat up with a loud gasp, her heart pounding.

For a second, she blinked against the morning sun, not sure where she was, let alone why she had the sudden premonition of danger.

The day was sweet and cool. The birds filled the air around her woodland bower with their carefree piping, and although she felt as though she had been run over by an Urmugoth stampede, she realized, thank Ilios, she’d made it home safe.

With a groan, she fell onto her back again, still half-asleep, but the motion as she did so brought an unexpected clank of metal beside her.

Thaydor!

As the memory of last night’s ordeal came flooding back in a rush, she flicked her eyes open only to find two wee fairies peering down at her, hovering like hummingbirds mere inches from her face.

“Awake!” one called to the others.

“Finally!”

The rest came zipping over, crowding so close about that she could hear the soft buzz of their wingbeats.

“Saffron cakes?” they pleaded.

“With honey!”

“Miss Wrynnay, you promised! Get up! We’re hungry.”

“Good morning to you, too,” she mumbled, wanting to be left alone, but there was much to do. “Thanks for getting me home,” she added begrudgingly. “Now, if you don’t mind, it’s early—”

“Please, please, we’ve been waiting ever so patiently! Saffron cakes, now!”

“With honey! You promised!”

“Right, right, I know. Very well. But first let me check on my patient.”

She looked over at Sir Thaydor. Apparently, they had lain side by side all night on her bed, unmoving, she fully dressed, he still clad in his armor.

Like the sepulchral figures of a knight and his lady carved in stone atop their tombs, united in death forever, she thought with a snort.

The question was,
was
he dead or had the
Kiss of Life
spell actually worked?

She was almost afraid to look. She bit her lip and pushed up gingerly onto her elbow, trying not to shake the bed at all. The fairies retreated a bit.

“Thaydor?” she murmured.

He was still out cold, but his color looked decent. She put her hand in front of his nose and smiled in delight when she felt the air moving in and out of his nostrils.

A tiny hand tugged a length of her hair. “Saffron cakes! Now, Wrynnay!”

“Ow! Shh! In a minute. Say, I have an idea. Why don’t you go pick some wild berries and bring them back. I’ll cook them into the saffron cakes for you. It’ll be even more delicious that way.”

With small gasps and an exchange of startled glances, they seemed intrigued by this suggestion.

“Strawberries?”

“Blueberries?”

“Mulberries?”

“Elderberries?”

“Stinkberries?”

“There’s no such thing as stinkberries,” Silvertwig said, rolling her eyes.

“Any kind you want,” Wrynne said impatiently. “Go now and see what you can find.”

They zoomed off in all directions on this splendid treasure hunt, except for Silvertwig, who just grinned at her.

“I owe you one,” Wrynne whispered to her familiar.

Silvertwig curtsied in midair, then twirled up into the rafters of Wrynne’s airy, pavilion-like dwelling and crouched down to watch the proceedings from above.

Wrynne stretched with a wince, sore all over from the mere empathic echo of sharing the paladin’s experience of being so savagely attacked. He might be used to that sort of thing, but her whole body felt as though she had spent the night on the torturer’s rack.

Things could have been much, much worse, however. She was just relieved that the fairies had kept up their end of the bargain and got her home safely. As she shuffled around barefoot to Thaydor’s side of the bed, she wryly noted that the Aladdin stretcher had got away from her helpers after they had dumped her off on her bed.

It was hovering up by the vaulted ceiling of her bower, and she wondered with a sigh how she was going to get it down from there.

Then she approached Thaydor—a little apprehensively, in truth. She couldn’t believe the champion of the kingdom was passed out in her bed.

Gingerly, she inspected his head wound. Blood still caked his tawny, sun-streaked hair, but to her amazement, the frightful gash was closed. His skull fracture was now no more than a small cut as his body mended itself with shocking speed, thanks to the potent magic she had dispensed to him.

Stroking his brow lightly with her knuckle, she was so happy to see his improvement she could’ve kissed him again.

Instead, she closed her eyes and thanked their god from the bottom of her heart for saving him.

It was then that Wrynne remembered her dream and the premonition of danger that had woken her with such urgency.

Furrowing her brow, she left Thaydor’s side and went outside, to the edge of her retreat. In a shaft of sunlight, she closed her eyes for a moment and found the weary center of peace within herself. Then she conjured a sanctuary spell, channeling the Light out through her raised hands.

A mirrorlike wall of invisibility encircled her dwelling, hiding her little, round, vine-covered pavilion behind a cover of deep forest. The magical concealment spread out to envelop the sunny glade where her apothecary garden thrived, as well as the mossy stone steps that led down to the secluded pool at the bottom of the waterfall.

Once she had the sanctuary spell in place, it was easier to relax. Still troubled by the dream and the momentous events of the night before, however, she took a moment to splash her face and swallow a few mouthfuls of sweet, clear water.

Thaydor could probably use some, too, she thought, so she carried the pitcher over to his bedside and poured some water onto a fresh bandage. With a fingertip, she parted his lips slightly, squeezing a few drops of water off the bandage and into his mouth.

As she cleaned some of the dried blood and grime off his chiseled face, she pondered the two Thaydors that she had now encountered. The first was the same public image of the Golden Knight that everybody knew, the second, the brutal warrior she had seen last night.

The first time she had ever seen him, he had been riding at the head of the army, leading the men home from the Krenian Wars in a victory parade that wound through the capital. Though just a young novitiate at the time, Wrynne had been as breathless as any young girl at the dazzling sight of the golden-haired paladin, with the sun glinting off his armor and the legendary blade at his hip with which he had felled a thousand foes. His white warhorse, Avalanche—who was almost as famous as his master—had pranced proudly underneath him.

The flower of chivalry, the people’s champion had smiled modestly and nodded to the adoring throngs as they threw pink roses at his feet.

The other Thaydor was the one she had met last night, the savage warfighter in all the awful truth of his calling, far from the victory parades. Mud and death, blood and sacrifice, unimaginable suffering, despair, and the constant prospect of dying alone, far from home.

She was so glad she had been permitted to save him from that fate. If anyone had ever deserved it, Thaydor did.

Deciding to make him more comfortable, she began carefully removing his armor. She needed to see how his other wounds were coming along anyway. First, she unbuckled his sword belt and then pulled off the tatters of his proud white surcoat.

There were countless buckles and straps and leather lacings all over him holding the confusing harness of his armor in place. A knight could not do all the pieces by himself, which made her suddenly realize he must have been traveling with a squire.

She wondered where his knight-in-training could have gone—and their horses, for that matter. She hoped no harm had come to them.

As she slowly and carefully took apart the metal man, she piled all the form-fitted plates of steel over by the wall.

Next came the chain mail. The hip-length coat of small metal links protected all the vulnerable joints between his armor plates. Her attempts to pull his deadweight upper body into a sitting position so she could then lift the chain mail up and off over his head were almost comical. She thought for sure the clinking noise of it would wake him, but he was still in a magic-induced slumber, his head flopping against her shoulder like a drunkard’s, his muscled arm resting across her shoulders, half his weight sagging against her.

“Whoa!” She pushed him toward the bed when he nearly rolled right off it onto the floor. “Thaydor, cooperate, would you?”

He slept on, deep in dreamland.

Finally drawing the heavy coat of chain mail off over his head like a mother undressing her sleeping toddler for bed, she carried the coat of mail over to the pile by the wall and blew a lock of her hair out of her face. She marched back resolutely to her patient.

Under his chain mail, Thaydor was wearing a very fine, red sleeveless gambeson over a loose linen shirt, black chausses, and simple black leather shoes. She immediately checked his broken leg and then rolled up his sleeve to see his burned forearm. Both limbs had been miraculously healed.