Sleepless (Curse of the Blood Fox Trilogy, Book #1) (8 page)

“Yeloff,” she said softly, but he
yanked the sword out before she could finish, and she collapsed. A few of the
bandits fell down at her side and tried to put pressure on her wound, but it
was fatal. Their eyes had gone from hard to terrified.

“Yeloff, stop,” a short man ordered. He
was immediately laid down by one swipe. Screams of terror erupted this time,
and the others began fleeing the room through the door I had come through. I
pushed through the flood and squared off with Yeloff, holding my daggers out
defensively. His heavy breaths came out like sobs.

“This sword will help me get my
revenge,” he said, like he was trying to convince himself it was true. His eyes
weren't on me or anyone else.

I felt my own hands tremble. He was
killing his own brothers and sisters that he loved, all under the force of a
will that wasn't his. I knew that helpless, terrible feeling. He had just
wanted revenge. Oh, how I knew that rage.

“Valentina,” I whispered. “Let him go.
He is in pain enough, don't you think?”

I felt a roar like the sea crashing
against my body. I could feel her clearly as if she were speaking words.
Everything was a spiral of confusion and pain. Nothing was enough to quell it
or make it stop. Nothing but Phernado. Nothing but the hope for revenge, and
peace. Nothing but blood.

“I understand,” I said, and my voice
was heavy and docile. “I really understand, more than I can put words to.
Killing this man won't make it stop, though. If killing just anyone could make
pain go away, I would have found my peace already too. Please trust me,
Valentina. We made a deal. I will bring you back to him, and I will find a way
to help you both.”

The air shivered and stilled. I
thought I may have miraculously gotten through to her, but pain suddenly ripped
at my back. The world twisted and blurred in vicious spasms, and my vision
swam. Valentina shook the air violently before me. She had not moved. Yeloff
was frozen in place, a broken slave to her will. I spun, painfully slow, and
found behind me the man who I had knocked unconscious at the entrance, Geram, with
a knife in his hand. Blood was on its point.

“You missed,” I said, hissing as I crouched
low. His small eyes widened and sweat dripped from his pores in dirty streams.

“I did not, I got yeh square in the
back,” he said.

“And is that a proper place to stab
someone?” I asked with utmost care over my tone, inching forward. My hair
brushed the floor and dragged with each step.

“The back is the only place for a
thief,” the little man said with pride, though his voice warbled. He backed
from me towards the door like a scared lamb. I bared my teeth.

“It is bad manners for anyone,
including a thief.”

“Boss,” the little man cried out,
seeking help. Just then, an explosion split my ears. Energy surged and plowed
through everyone left in the room. It felt like the air itself came to life and
threw me as if I were nothing. I tumbled to one side as Geram flew the opposite
way. The walls shook against the pressure, creaking and straining.

Yeloff finally spoke again, now a
crumpled mass on the ground with Valentina still in his hand. “The trap has
been sprung.” It was as if he had been shaken out of a deep sleep. He looked at
me slowly, relief in those vibrant green eyes. “Nothing matters anymore. We
have won.”

My mind raced as I tried to pull
myself up in the chaos. The trap was meant for Traken, but why would Traken
have approached? He knew better. As I went to stand, the waves of magic energy
flooding the house threw me against the wall again.

“Auuughh!” My wounded back hit hard
against the wood. I saw things, bodies, people flying. There were screams, some
distant and some near, but everything was moving in this storm and I could
focus on none of it. Dust and dirt rose up in clouds as another violent roar
shook the room. It was the last straw, and the roof caved in above us.

It took some time for me to remember
where I was. I could not tell if I had blacked out, or merely lost track of
time in the heavy rubble of stone and wood. I could not have fallen too far
into blackness, because I had not had the Dream.

The world was a dark and heavy
nothingness. I twitched each finger, one at a time. They were there. Then my
toes and feet. I could move them. Besides the excruciating pain in my back,
which was straight up against what had to be the floor, and a dribble of
something wet on my face that was making it hard to open one eye, I was fine.
Yet I couldn't see anything, and there was a strong pressure on my chest.

I could not hear or feel anything very
well either. There was just buzzing and a chill that stilled my muscles. I
tried moving my arms, and realized the left one was not trapped. I used it to
push up, and my hand touched something almost hard, almost soft. I felt around
on it. Clothing, hair. My throat clenched; a body.

Holding in a breath, I bucked against
the weight that held me down. Things shifted and moved above, and suddenly I
could make out daylight, flowing in beams above my head through cracks in fallen
brick and wood. I dragged my other hand free, though sharp bits dug and tore at
the skin. The humming in my head was dying down.

Smells were making their way through
my senses again. Dirt, dust, the blood and sweat from the dead man on top of
me. He was the boy whose throat had been slit; I could see that now. I swiveled
my hips and pushed, shoving my way up through the wreckage. When I finally
broke free into the bright sunlight above, I took in clean, sweet breaths and
looked around.

The whole room was gone. Not a single
wall stood; it had all caved in on itself, and there wasn’t a single person to
be seen, or body besides the one that had come to rest on top of me. From
outside the building as I now was, it seemed like the rest of the house was
still standing, though I could see places where walls were down or other pieces
of roof had caved in. Outside, the field was still merry and green. Chickens
clucked and dug around the wreckage as if nothing was wrong.

“This is unbelievable,” I said aloud,
pulling myself from the damaged hole I had shared. There were cuts and bruises
all over my hands and arms. In fact, it looked like my own daggers had taken a
few slices out of my fingers, though nothing deep enough to be worried about. I
contemplated going back in to search for the buried weapons, but decided it
would be fruitless. I had more. Instead, I used a couple fingers to carefully
pry open my closed eye. It wasn't swollen, just sticky with blood. I didn't
want to know from what wound.

There were no human sounds. I thought
bandits would come pouring out in search of their leader at any second, but no
one did. I didn’t even see movement from the hiding places Traken had pointed
out where the lookouts had been. The only noise was of birds singing joyous
rhapsodies in the treetops.

I had lost a sandal, and its absence
made it hard to walk, so I removed the one that was left. My feet were tough
and calloused, but I placed each one carefully nonetheless as I inched to the
center of the pile of broken beams and brick.

“Valentina,” I whispered, and the open
air stole my raspy voice. I tried again a little louder. “Valentina, where are
you?”

Some smaller bits of rubble rolled at
my feet, and I caught a glint of ruby hidden underneath the very spot I stood.
My knees hit the mound and I started digging through the wood and pieces of
roofing tile. Valentina lay in the grasp of a white hand, holding tight from
beneath some beams of broken wood. The hand was soft yet reluctant as I pried
the sword from its grasp, but lay still after I released it.

I wondered if he had died content or
haunted.

“You have been incorrigible,” I told
Valentina, rubbing the dirt off her length with the cloud-soft cloth of
Traken's robe. She remained quiet and docile. “That aside, I don't think I can
blame what happened just now on you.”

I was concerned about Yeloff's
assertion that Traken had approached, and since I did not see him outside the
only thing left to do was head in. Valentina at the ready, I slunk down through
the little opening that was left of the doorway leading into the rest of the
building, and found myself standing in a mostly-still-intact hallway. The
sunlight only escaped in through a few cracks, and everything was eerily quiet.

“I couldn't have been the only one who
survived a mere roof-collapse,” I said. I followed the hallway back to the double
doors, which were now bent and slightly open. Daylight glowed from between
them. I pushed one side the rest of the way open with my sword, skin itching
for an ambush.

The scene before me was devastating.
The room must have been a dining hall, but I couldn't recognize it as that now
except for the tin plates and cups that stuck out of the mounds of snapped wood
and broken stone. The reek of blood assaulted my nose; bodies lay scattered
across the whole expanse of the room, some half-buried in piles of rubble.

I had no doubt these people were
dead—they were riddled with circular holes that went all the way through, large
absences of flesh circled by charred skin. I had seen this sort of thing only
once or twice in my lifetime, once being in that hated Broken Treaty war. It
was dangerous sorcery, almost to the level of being forbidden. Its entire point
was destruction.

“What have I stumbled into?” I asked.
I heard a soft “whuff” of a laugh from across the room, and looked up. Traken
was there, but not as I had left him. He was pinned against the far wall, or
what was left of it, by a large spear in his shoulder, its blade so deep in his
skin that I couldn’t even see the shine of metal. The wound was bleeding
heavily. Strange symbols encircled the wall around him, glowing, and similar
white glyphs covered the spear. The arm caught by the weapon hung mangled and
lifeless at his side, but his spirit seemed generally intact.

“I am afraid we have stumbled into
quite a bad situation,” he said.

“What is all this?” I asked. Traken
shrugged the shoulder that worked, and the amulets around his neck clacked
pleasantly.

“Oh, your classic magi-trap, with a
little more zing than normal. I materialized inside this room, and saw all the
magi-wards too late. They went off and the Falcons trapped me in a Stopper... a
sort of invisible net made by sorcerers, for sorcerers.” He pointed to the
glowing symbols around him on the wall and floor. “These are for keeping
someone in one place. There are ways to get around them, but one of the bandits,
quite a good shot, nabbed me with this spear. Have you seen the kind before?”

I looked at the elegantly chiseled,
glowing designs on the wood and shook my head.

“It is a special device used by only a
discrete sect of magic-users. Le Fam, they are called. They haven't liked me
for a very long time. I have no doubt they are the ones who supplied the
Falcons with all these powerful instruments and stoked their vengeance for me
in the first place.”

“What, another group of dangerous
people who want you dead?” I asked with a soft laugh, leaning forward. Dusty
tendrils of long hair fell across my face. “I doubt there was much stoking to
do after you killed their leader. I would have done the same as Yeloff, were I
in his place.”

“Yeloff?”

“The man who was trying to kill you,
Traken. At least learn names.” I circled closer to the spear-point, examining
the wound. It went straight through to the wall, but hadn't damaged anything
but his shoulder. If he didn't bleed out first, he might get away with nothing
but a lame arm.

“What does this spear do?” I asked.
Traken pulled himself up on the wall a little to relieve the strain on his arm.
More blood pooled into the folds of my borrowed fighting robe, and his breath
hitched.

“It does what the Stopper does, but
even better. This spear blocks access to all sources of power. The symbols on
it do, anyway. When near them, and especially while touching them, they stop me
from being able to access any energy for spells.”

“Ah. So you're trapped,” I said,
looking around the room again for any sign of danger. There was no roof left,
and barely any walls. The sight of all the bodies buried in the wreckage hurt
my chest. “How did you do all this?”

“I didn't,” Traken said. “I believe
the Le Fam put a counter-spell on the spear especially for the Falcons. I
suppose the idea was to have them kill me and then kill them too, so they
couldn't share any of the Le Fam's secrets. Those people don't keep allies or
enemies for very long.”

The devastation around us put those
words in morbid perspective, and also frustrated me. “Why would you come in
here then?” I asked him. “You knew this was a trap, and with so many people
after you, you had to know it was dangerous.”

“It doesn't matter what I know,” he
said, glancing away. “My priorities are my master's orders, and those are to
bring you to him alive. I was listening in the whole time, and when it seemed
like the situation was getting out of control I had to step in.”

“Idiot,” I said unkindly. “I wasn't
about to die. I had things under control.”

He looked me over. “You do seem rather
spry for being stabbed and having a building fall on you.” He made a face. “And
you ruined my robe.”

“It seems fair, by the looks of what
you've done to mine.” Then I laughed, a true laugh that shook my belly.

Traken's lips twisted up. “That's a
pleasant sound.”

“You say as if it were foreign to you,”
I said, mood lightening with the crinkling in his eyes. I stood and rattled the
feeling back into my fingers and toes. “Alright, how do I get you out of this
thing?”

“Out?” Traken echoed. His hesitation
left me perplexed.

“Yes, out,” I said. “It doesn’t look
like the blade is curved, from what I can see. There is a way to get it off,
right? Could I just pull it?” I fingered the wooden handle of the spear,
testing it timidly. It was warm, but didn't hurt.

Traken didn't say anything, which was
odd, but he did nod. I set Valentina down and gripped the heavy wood of the
spear, trying to position my hands so that the cuts on them did not rub the
wood too much. It would be unfortunate to have fresh blood making my grip
slippery, especially when this was already going to be painful enough for
Traken.

“Brace yourself,” I warned, and gave a
gigantic tug. He groaned loudly, but the spear only wiggled and did not come
out. I pulled again and again, wincing at the sounds both Traken and his
shoulder were making. Finally the spear came loose. The release sent me
tumbling backwards and I growled loudly in my throat as pain raced up through
my leg. I looked down.

There was a long, thick splinter
imbedded in my heel.

A lot of nasty words flew from my
mouth. Letting the spear drop and falling into a sitting position on the floor,
I pulled my heel around to look at it. The chunk of sharp wood was about an
inch in, and the effect was astoundingly grotesque. I loathed the idea of
pulling it out. It would be worse than pulling an arrow out, and that always
hurt.

“Traken, I hate you,” I said. He kicked
the large spear away that had held him, and I felt energy fizz and spark the
air. I looked up to find him hovering above me. The symbols on the wall had
lost their pulsing life, and though the robe around his wound was still torn
and bloody, the wound itself was much smaller than it should have been. In
fact, as I watched, it got smaller still. There was a golden aura around the
spot, and when it dissipated all that was left of the hole was an ugly but
small gash.

“Sorcerers can't heal,” I said,
dumbstruck. My foot was momentarily forgotten.

“Sorcerers can't shapechange either,”
Traken said brightly, kneeling down at my side. “Ah, isn't the world just full
of mysteries.”

“But you are a sorcerer,” I told him,
as if I had to remind him of his rank. “That means you draw from... from
Sola
.
Sola
can't heal.” He laughed, which made my skin prickle.

“That's right, but
Teran
does.
My mother was a witch. I got some of her abilities as well.”

A cross-blood. That news made me look
at Traken with renewed interest. Cross-bloods were rare, but cross-bloods who
chose more than one source were even rarer. Most magic-folk were only born with
one affinity, and if they were born with more they merely chose the strongest.
It took a lot of energy and skill to draw from more than one. On top of that,
if
Sola
had the most versatile magic, then
Teran
had the
strongest. To be both an adept sorcerer
and
witch was unheard of.

“That is rather remarkable,” I
admitted. I didn't really want to pay him a compliment, but he was becoming
more and more awing. I had always just assumed he was a low-level servant to
his lord.

Traken was leaning close, looking into
my eyes, and as soon as I realized this I scooted backwards and away.

“They're black right now,” he
commented.

“That's because I am in
pain
,”
I said, and then scowled. He was taking this interest in the color of my eyes a
bit too far. I was about to say so, but stopped when I realized Traken had his
hands cupped over my foot. The golden aura came again, and I felt a cold,
delicious feeling seep through my skin. When he moved his hands, the splinter
was gone and the hole was merely a light scrape.