Protector of the Flight (64 page)

And a monotonous whimpering in his mind. Calli. He took off his
helmet, letting the air dry his wet scalp, and looked toward her. She and Thunder
circled the battlefield. Though their flight was like a dance, Marrec knew
shudders rippled her body, nausea filled her.

Alexa followed his gaze, frowned as if she sensed Calli's horror**
and sickness herself. "Been there, done that," Alexa said. Then Thunder
banked, one wing nearly touching the ground, his close foot kicking out to
finish a rising slayer. "Sorta," said Alexa. She turned back to
Marrec, brows still lowered. Taking a cleaning rag from her pouch, she slid it
over her blade, eyes meeting his. "This is Calli's first fight. That means
she'll have to be blooded." Alexa's lips thinned. "She won't like
that." Alexa's lips tightened, then she continued. "Were you at mine
—
Oh,
yes, you were. Do the same."

Do the same? Then he recalled that as her pairling and an
experienced Chevalier, it was up to him to blood Calli
—
annoint
her with the blood of her enemy. For the first time in his life he thought
about it
—
thought it was a barbaric custom. He
sent his mind back to the first time he'd seen Alexa fight, trying to recall.
What had Bastien done? He couldn't envision it. Then realized Bastien hadn't
been there. Luthan had been the person who'd blooded Alexa, and Marrec let out
a breath as he remembered.

Then Calli was there, above him, Gray coming in for a short
landing, along with Dark Lance. They were awfully close, so he stood still. As
soon as Gray stood and folded his wings, Marrec reached for Calli, drawing her
off the volaran to lean against him. Her face was pale and wet from tears. Her
body trembled. He wrapped his arms around her and felt her soaring relief that
he was there, that she was not alone, and that touched him so his throat
closed.

"The new
Exotique Chevalier will now be blooded!" Bastien announced, coming toward
them, sympathy in his gaze. He was right. Get it over with fast.

"Trust me," Marrec whispered to Calli.

She blinked and looked up at him. "I do."

He set her to one
side, scanned the beast bodies around them. What had Luthan used? He couldn't
remember. Render would be best, no chance of poison from a render, unlike soul
sucker or slayer which carried foul blood in their veins.

Alexa was there, standing on Calli's other side, so close as to be
brushing her skin. "Brace yourself," Alexa said. A circle of
Chevaliers, then Marshalls, formed around them.

"Blooded." Calli
licked her lips, staring down at the heap of dead horrors. "Does that mean
what I think it does?"

"Probably, but Marrec will do it."

Calli relaxed a little. Her gaze met his. "It will be all
right then."

A sweep of emotion flooded Marrec. Caring. He'd never cared for
another person so much as he did Calli. He jerked a nod, stripped off the
fighting gauntlet on his left hand, touched the bloody wound in a render's
back. Dark red-black blood coated his finger. He noticed his hand shook a little.
That wouldn't do. He sent Power to steady his nerves. With the most delicate of
touches, he dabbed Calli's cheek. She stood rock still.

A chorus of cheers roared around them.

Calli's lips turned up. "Guess I'm a real Chevalier,
huh?"

Swordmarshall Thealia's husband and Shield walked up, a short man
who usually wore a
smile.
Today his expression was serious. "I kept an eye on you during the
battle," he said. "You did very well as a Shield. Never doubt
yourself."

Clearing her throat,
Calli ducked, then said. "Thank you."

Alexa grinned, clapped Calli on her shoulder. "You passed the
test, Calli." Then Alexa's brows dipped. "Tho, no, you
won
the
final championship."

"Guess so," Calli said. "Does that mean I get a
gold buckle?"

"That means we have made our first payment on our land,"
Marrec said. "We're done here." And how glad he was that he wasn't
counting his kill, scavanging for pelts to sell. He glanced to the mountains to
the north, then the south. "They came directly north of our property.
Again. I hope this doesn't continue to be a pattern."

"They might have
moved their staging camp," Alexa said. "We should contact the Circlets
and find out as soon as we return to the Castle." She held out her hand to
her Shield, Bastien. "Let's go back."

Marrec slid his harm around Calli's waist. "We'll do better.
We'll go home. Check on the house and land."

Anticipation and pleasure flowed from her to him.

"Good idea," Alexa said, waved.

Calli stepped away from him. Despite the time and place, Marrec
wanted to keep holding her. But if they were lucky, the house would be clean
and hold a bed, at least. The notion cheered him. Calli smiled. "You lead,
cowboy."

Calli Summoned To Lladrana

Robin D. Owens
The Summoning
-- Field

CUT SCENE.  All
rights reserved; copyright © Robin D. Owens.  The text contained within may not
be reproduced in whole or in part or distributed in any form whatsoever OR SOLD
without first obtaining permission from the author
.

By the time her eyes
cleared, she'd passed the edge of the ranch yard and was on her way to the
sandstone rocks and the tiny cave that had always been her refuge.

When she reached the
cave and crawled inside, her pelvis ached all the way up to her teeth. She
coughed at the dust she’d stirred, but welcomed the scent of dried pine.
Gingerly arranging herself so she leaned against one wall, her legs straight,
she wiped the grime from her face once more, then wrinkled her nose at the
brown and red dirt smears on her bandana.

She panted with
exertion. Her teeth hurt from gritting them as she’d negotiated her way through
the rocks. The sound of her breathing almost covered the small
drip-drip-drip-trickle of water from the back of the cave. The chant, chimes
and gong still rushed like the air in a seashell in her ears.

She closed her eyes
and whirls of bright colors streaked inside of her eyelids. The spots would
fade as she rested. The rock was cold and hard against her back as her head
throbbed with equally hard thoughts. She’d been a fool. All her life she’d
wanted love from her father and so had pretended her own love for him was
returned. Huh. Well, that was the past. Maybe only the recent past, but time to
wake up and fix her mistakes. Soon.

Spark was gone. Her
heart twinged, jerking her body. She could barely stand that thought. Bill
Morsey was a good horseman, and his daughter would be thrilled to have Spark.
Calli’s lips turned down and a couple more tears leaked from her eyes. She
sniffed. Her father had probably done the best thing for Spark. The horse loved
to run, delighted in an audience. Calli gulped and blew her nose on the corner
of her bandana.

Exhaustion grayed the
edges of her vision. Her heartbeat began to slow to normal. Too much emotion
and exertion in such a short amount of time had drained her.

Time seemed to slow
until it crystalized the moment. The scent of rock and pine, the faint tumble
of water, the cold air of the cave pressing around her etched on her memory.
Yes, she was safe here in her refuge.

Her eyelashes picked
up grainy dust and irritated her. The tinkle of water reminded her that
somewhere there was dampness that could clean her face, maybe even a handspan
of a pool. Calli glanced into the darkness of the cave, shivered with the
cooling sweat on her body. She’d never squeezed through the narrow opening
between two sharply jutting rock walls
—
always afraid she might get stuck, or trapped, or lost. In
the dark.

The dark hadn’t ever
been her friend, even before she was six, before her mom walked away, leaving
her locked in the cold, little bedroom as evening fell. The back of her neck
tingled. More sandstone grit, probably. She swiped at it with her hand and it
sifted down into her collar. Calli snuffled. Coughed. Wiped her face on the
bandana again, then tucked it in her jeans pocket.

She’d faced
disillusionment today, maybe it was time to face one more fear
—
then
she’d know she was strong and able to deal with the future on her own.

Or maybe finding the
water was simply another delay to thinking about what she should do. Fight or
run. Would it be running from her Dad, or bravely walking into a new future?
How much did she love the ranch?

Palms against the
rough floor, then the rough wall behind her, Calli levered herself to her feet.
She grabbed the sturdy branch and used it as a cane. Her slow steps to the
blackness at the back of the cave were more from her stiffening injury than her
dread. The chant had picked up again, weaving around the sound of water in a
whole that soothed her. The trickle-drip had changed, too. Drip-drip-trickle-
bong
.
Nothing bad could be back there. Too cold for snakes, too small for bears, no
other sort of animal-den smells....

With an outstretched
hand she felt the rough projection of the rocks. She sucked in her belly and
tucked her bottom, and scraped through. Pain, but nothing she couldn’t handle,
it
had
been a tight fit.

Three careful steps
later, her outstretched hand touched a rock wall ahead, then she felt a wall to
the left, too. Cocking an ear, she strained for the sound of water. To her
right. She proceeded cautiously, ran into another dead-end, then stilled and
squinted. It looked lighter to her left, not black but the darkest of
brown-red. The trickle-chime, chant echoed from there, too. Could it possibly
be the wind singing through sandstone holes, natural pipes? Her lips curved in
a smile at the whimsey. That was possible, but not likely.

Mountain sage scent
rose from her scuffing steps. Tart, sharp, clean and bracing. She breathed
deeply and pressed on, slowly but with a natural rhythm to her walk that had
eluded her for months.

The darkness felt
kind, comforting. Maybe she should have explored this little passageway sooner.
‘Course she hadn’t ever heard the chant and the gong here before.

One last shuffling
turn and she came into a bright box-like room. She blinked to accustom her eyes
to the light. The space was no more than five feet square. A hawk called and
she looked up. A hundred feet above her there was a swatch of brilliant blue
sky. She was in a natural chimney. When she brought her gaze back down, her
eyes had to adapt to the dimness again.

She narrowed her gaze
and saw the trickle of water about four inches wide in the far corner, rambling
down a crack. It hit a tiny outcropping, smooth from years of drips, then fell
a
couple of inches
into an equally small indentation before disappearing again into the crack. A
small miracle of nature.

For a while, Calli
just stood there, balanced with her stick, and enjoyed the calm of her
emotions. Too many problems had pressed down on her lately, flattening her
spirits. For this one moment she could be quiet and enjoy life, let thoughts
drift through her mind without jabbing at her heart.

Did she love the
ranch?

No. It had always
reflected what her Dad wanted, not the kind of ranch she wanted, a horse ranch.

But she loved the
land. And she loved the potential she could sense just beyond her vision of a
horse ranch. She’d have to fight her dad on that, though. She let the little,
angry notion prick her then dissipate. Enough just to be, and be
well
,
right now. This space was special. A holy place, maybe. And maybe she wasn’t
supposed to have found it until now. She certainly couldn’t explain the
continuing chant, chimes and gong. Her fancies weren’t too strange, right here,
but would be laughable in the outside world.

Calli pulled her
bandana from her pocket, snapped it a couple of times to send as much grit
flying as she could, and took a few steps to dampen a corner in the cupped
water. Then she hesitated. It seemed wrong to sponge up most of the accumulated
wetness. She dipped her fingers in the little rock
cup instead. The water was icy.
She sucked the fresh droplets from her fingers. It tasted great. She smiled.

Something more had to
be done, though. Her gratitude for the moments of sanctuary needed to be
acknowledged. She fumbled for a prayer. “God bless,” she whispered.

BONG!

The sound came next
to her ear, louder and more vibrant than ever. She pivoted, lost her balance
and fell. Ah, rats, she was going to hit her head on the damn rock wall.

But she fell through
it, into a blackness so deep she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open. She
choked on a scream. All her emotions that had stilled in the little refuge
jammed into her. Fear. Despair. Most of all, a great longing for someone to
love. Someone to love her back.

It lasted instants.
It lasted an eternity. Then bright colors whirled in her sight
—
patterns,
stained glass! Pillars around the curved walls of a circular room, and rafters
with huge crystal ends.