Protector of the Flight (36 page)

She
cherished every moment that went without an alarm—a full six days—before the
Klaxon sounded again, jolting fear into her, destroying her peace in an
instant.

25

T
he sun was
setting as they banished the orbs of Distance Magic. Calli hoped this would be
quick. She wasn’t nearly as good in night battles. At least in practice.

Marrec
smiled reassuringly and unsheathed his sword. They descended through a wisp of
icy cloud, weapons raised, ready to fight, Marrec in the lead with Alexa and
Thealia, followed by another wave of Chevaliers, Calli and the other Shields
dropping back. Then Marrec jerked straight, wavered in the saddle. Calli had
already flung a Shield around him, couldn’t understand what was going wrong—she
linked with him and felt his every nerve ending fire with pain. What was
happening? She swept a glance around, saw nothing threatening him. He pulled
up. Dark Lance whinnied with fear. Marrec saw nothing, his emotions were in a
turmoil. Nausea engulfed him and he leaned over to vomit.

Others
dodged his spray and cursed him.

He
slumped over Dark Lance, who faltered in flight, tipping from one side to
another.

Swish!
A slayer’s
spine missed Calli by inches. She strengthened her own Shield, found herself
flying low into the middle of battle, a render leaping high at her with
gleaming razor claws.

Thunder
tucked up his legs, shot up and away in the nick of time. Calli kept his
emotions cool, his mind steady, free of panic. Then she met Dark Lance’s fearful
Song with her own, drew him away from panic, from terror of monsters killing
him. She
merged
with Marrec and felt his fright, his horror, his
despair, cycling, cycling. Thunder’s body rippled beneath her. She snapped her
mind away, pulled her emotions from him. Kept control of her own feelings, and
Thunder’s.

There
weren’t many beasts—perhaps twenty—and the fight was quick. It took a few
minutes to defeat them.

It
took an eternity while Calli steadied Dark Lance and strove to reach Marrec, to
make sense of the emotions racking him.

Thealia’s
usual shout of triumph rose through the air. She held her malachite baton
aloft. “Victory! Return to the Castle.”

One
more tremor seized Marrec and he wheeled Dark Lance westward, to the sea. The
other fighters flung bubbles of Distance Magic around themselves and headed
southeast. Calli flew after Marrec. Her husband was hurting.

He
didn’t fly to the Castle, didn’t fly toward home. Calli sent a mental demand to
Alexa for her and Bastien to ensure Diaminta’s well-being that night.

Sleepover!
Alexa had
replied, making Calli smile, knowing her child was in good hands.

A
half hour passed before Marrec shook off his blinding emotions. He came to
himself all at once, sat up straight in the saddle, sheathed his sword. He brushed
her mind with his own, cool and logical as usual. Calli released the soft hold
she had on Dark Lance.

Mouth
grim, Marrec turned the winged horse back to where the battle had been. No one
from the Castle had fallen, and the slain horrors still lay as heaps on the
ground, being picked over by scavengers. Marrec angled slightly to the
northeast to an area about a hundred yards from the battle.

Finally,
they set down in the long evening shadows. Dark Lance dropped his head, his
sides bellowed, his coat was beaded with sweat. Marrec swayed in the saddle,
eyes closed, body stiff.

Calli
dismounted, Sang a short, soothing tune and the tack removed itself from the
winged horses, settled to the long grass growing in a large, lush square. The
sun flung one last bright ray into the sky, then vanished. She walked to her
Pairling in night. Stood beside Dark Lance and put her hand on Marrec’s thigh.
“What’s wrong?”

He
jerked his chin at a half wall covered in ivy. “I never wanted to remember, but
since this afternoon, I can’t forget. My…” His voice was hoarse, he licked his
lips, turned his head to look down at her. “This land, this place was my old
home.”

She
stilled, let her mind and heart reach out to him, experienced the flow of
images. No pleasant ones this time, the battle had ensured that. The renders
and the slayers of that day superimposed upon past images, the sounds of battle
leached away until no slide of sword against claws was heard, no shouts of
human triumph. Instead there was the ripping sounds of slaughtered humans, the
screams of dying people. She laid her head in his lap, circled his lean waist
with her arms. “Come away, we’ll fly home.”

“No.
That’s cowardly.”

He
lifted a hand as if it were heavy, set it on her head. More memories…colorful
ones of blood and destruction—fabric, furniture, homes, people—flooded her. She
bit her lip to keep her own cry of horror from escaping. “To…to the Castle
then. We can bathe. Cuddle Diaminta.”

Marrec
flinched and she knew she’d made a mistake. He was too much in the past, with
his parents, his brothers as children, to be reminded of another young one—so
vulnerable to hurt and death.

But
all he said was, “No. I must face the memories sometime.”

The
sky had lit with a nearly full moon. His features seemed sharper limned with
silver, his face expressionless. His eyes glittered and Calli couldn’t tell if
it was with anger or grief. He’d shut his emotions away. He swung his opposite
leg over Dark Lance’s back and Calli retreated a few steps. When he was on the
ground, he stroked his volaran’s neck. “Good boy.”

Dark
Lance blew out a breath.

Marrec
straightened his shoulders, walked slowly to the slightly curving wall before
them. “This was the Temple. The only building made of stone.” He reached out to
touch it, then withdrew his hand. His neck tilted back as he looked at the
stars. “Even the sky reminds me now. I know these patterns. Mountain Moon, soon
to be End of Summer Feast Day.” Now he rolled his shoulders. The burden of
memory was hard for him—hard to carry, hard to speak of. Calli kept quiet.

“I
think…I think I would have left Gardpont. Gone south to some town.” His lips
twitched up in a parody of a smile, set again into a line. “I was
restless…then.”

She’d
never met a man so entrenched in home, now. And now she knew why.

Their
bootsteps made no sound as they walked on the verdant ground. Marrec circled
around the temple, scuffed a foot and revealed a threshold. He turned and
situated himself. “Nothing left of our wooden homes. The two shops. My father
was a cobbler.” He lifted his boot and stared at the sole. “He did work equal
to this, though this leather was far beyond his means.”

“He
was an excellent artisan, then,” Calli said stiltedly. She had to think hard
for words, and the fancy ones were the only ones that came. God, how was she
going to help her man? Especially when his memories flickered like broken film
in front of her eyes—a few frames of the round temple—covered with roses in the
summer, stark with snow in the winter. The area in front of it had been wide and
dusty, a gathering place—then had been piled with half-seen mangled bodies when
the child Marrec stumbled from devastation to devastation after the monsters
had left. His eyes had been puffy with tears, his throat raw with the mewling
grunts that were the only sound he could make.

Her
arm jingled with chain mail as she put it around his waist. They both stopped
for a moment, her thought matching his. The townspeople had no armor, few
weapons. And now both he and she were battling the horrors. The killing had
never ended for him.

Yet.

His
head lifted, his nostrils flaring, and Calli herself could smell the rich land,
the forgotten grain and vegetables and flowers gone wild. The stench of battle
a few hours ago. All mixed up with the night wind carrying chill from the
mountains. He shuddered and a snippet of his memory—of tying a rag around his
face at the hideous scent of death as he went from door to door looking for
survivors like him, finding no one. Seeing even the youngest torn…she
whimpered. Couldn’t help herself.

He
didn’t notice, but kept walking…down a street that was hard-packed dirt in his
recollection, until they were about three hundred feet from the temple. He
angled to the right, flung out an arm. “There. There was my home.”

Nothing
marked it.

He
walked in, ducking as if the lintel was now too low for his adult height.

She
stopped, then
saw
as he had last seen. His mother with a slayer’s spine
in her eye, his father raked open, insides gleaming through five deep slashes,
staring at the ceiling, his two dead brothers…Calli turned aside, bent double,
vomited. Was brought back to herself with his low groan, saw him fold to his
knees, his back arch and a yell of anguish rip from him. She grabbed a big leaf
and wiped her mouth, stumbled to him and fell to her own knees, grabbed him and
held on as he once again screamed his throat raw.

Like
him, she endured the memories.

Unlike
him, she wept.

Finally
they were too exhausted to grieve. Marrec held her close. “I have lived this,
now faced this. It is…crippling. It is nothing I want inside me, to harm you or
our children or myself.” They toppled sideways to the cool earth, soft with
fragrant grasses. “I
can’t
remember! Not ever again.”

Sweet
darkness pinpointed with the light of stars enveloped them, then blackness
rolled over them as if a heavy cloak comforted them, hid them. The cloak turned
to fog in her mind, penetrating her, finding the memories she’d just shared
with Marrec. Images disintegrated into nothingness. Calli hugged him tightly,
knowing the same thing happened to him. He gave the memories up willingly to
the planet of Amee, who absorbed them like the fallen dead.

W
hen they reached
the Castle early the next morning, Alexa and Bastien awaited them, Diaminta in
Bastien’s arms, her fingers twined in his black-and-white hair. Their squires
took the flying steeds and led them with much praise back to the stables.

Diaminta
stretched her hands out to Marrec. “Pa. Pa. Pa.”

He
took her, held her close. Calli came near and the little girl turned her head
away, but watched her from the corner of her eyes. Calli kissed her soft golden
cheek. Diaminta snuggled closer to Marrec.

“She
hardly looked at me—Auntie Alexa—at all,” Alexa grumbled. “Didn’t even play
with me. She likes the feycoocus, though.”

“Fin.
Fin. Fin!”

“I
guess so,” Calli said.

Marrec
sniffed at Diaminta. “Smells like you need a change.”

Bastien
closed his eyes. “Again?” He opened his eyelids and cocked his head. “I think
one of the new volarans that flew in last week is calling me.” He took off at a
trot toward an arena.

“I’ll
take her up to our rooms and meet you for breakfast in the dining hall.” Marrec
smiled at Calli easily, yet the lines around his eyes seemed a little deeper,
the silver in his hair a little wider.

“Sure,”
she said. “I want to check in on my horses.” She and Alexa strolled toward the
horse pens.

Alexa
said nothing until Marrec was out of earshot. “Lady Hallard knows Marrec’s
past. She told us yesterday’s battle took place where Gardpont village was
destroyed.”

A
shadow seemed to cross the sun, dimming the light. Calli rubbed her arms. “I
don’t recall. Not much. Just that Marrec lived through the massacre again that
day, and I did, too.”

Alexa
shuddered. “Poor little boy.”

“Yeah.”
Calli stretched, settling into the fact that she’d always be missing some
memories. “I do recollect that what he saw was enough to cripple a person
emotionally for the rest of his life.” Like a wife abandoning a man and their
daughter and a ranch, leaving the little girl in a locked room so she wouldn’t
wander. “And Marrec didn’t want that,” Calli continued softly. “He wants to be
as whole as possible for us—and for himself. He let the land take the memories
away. I did, too, I guess, since nothing vivid comes to mind, and I recall that
there were…vivid…images.” She swallowed, strode faster to the horse pen and
held out a hand to welcome her horses. Solid friends that she knew. “I didn’t
know Amee could do that.”

“I
didn’t, either.” Alexa stroked a horse nose shoved in her hand. “Relinquished
memories. Huh.” She frowned. “That’s stronger than I would be. I’d never let
such memories go, and maybe my heart would shrivel. And as my beloved Bastien
would say, ‘Not much comes out of a shriveled heart.’” She smiled. “I can just
hear him saying it.”

She
looked around, but Bastien was nowhere in sight. Her gaze went back to Marrec.
“He’s had a tough enough life as it is.” Shrugging, she gave a half smile. “He
was an orphan here. I was an orphan in Colorado. I listened when they talked of
him.”

“You
didn’t put it in your Lorebook of Exotiques.”

Alexa
lifted her nose. “Of course not. I think those books should end with the Snap.”

A
little chill coated Calli’s stomach. “I don’t want the Snap.”