11: Smoke

Her heart pounded a swift tempo as they moved.

The moons shone high in the sky, but they were only half-full that night, and their silvern light barely pierced the dense forest canopy. Leiyn strained to keep track of their quarry's trail while another eye watched for obstacles that might injure Steadfast. They traveled along a familiar route now, the interior loop of the Robin Holts, but she worried about losing the trail with too much haste. Still, she might have risked it had Isla not pleaded for caution.

"We'll help no one if we fall and break our necks," her friend reminded her. "I want to find these intruders as much as you do, but if we're traveling by night, we have to do it as safely as we can."

It did little to assuage Leiyn's impatience, but she relented, knowing the wisdom of Isla's words.

From the meadow of the Ilberian camp, she had estimated they were four leagues from the Lodge. In full light, they could have arrived within hours. But with darkness slowing them, the journey dragged ever on.

Wishing for something makes it grow no nearer. Tadeo's words reprimanded her then.

"You better be able to tell me that yourself soon, you old stump," she muttered to the darkness.

League after league, the tracks continued along the same route, and Leiyn eventually convinced Isla to increase their speed and simply follow the trail rather than search for the tracks. Despite the long ride, the sensation of being one step away from disaster kept her focus as sharp as an arrowhead. All her bodily needs faded to the background and she sank into her senses, pulling out every scrap of information she could from the shrouded wilderness.

Almost, she let down the walls surrounding her mahia. The temptation, ever bubbling beneath her shame and guilt, had grown stronger than it ever had in recent memory. With the lifesense, she could perceive anyone lingering in the woods for leagues around. Using it could mean the difference between finding their quarry and not.

No. Not now. Not ever.

She shoved the feeling back down and bolstered her barriers around it. She knew its price. She'd paid it before she'd known it for what it was. However useful it might be now, Gast magic was a cursed, unnatural thing.

She wouldn't spit on her mother and father's memories by surrendering to it now.

"Leiyn!"

Her head jerked up at Isla's soft call. The light, startling amid the darkness, immediately caught her eyes through the shadowed trunks. It shifted between orange and red. A faint whiff of smoke hung in the air.

Fire.

Without a word, Leiyn spurred her horse faster and felt Isla doing the same. Steadfast fought against her, the stallion panting with terror at his blindness, but he still obeyed. The fire grew closer, revealing itself to be as large as Leiyn had feared.

Only the Lodge itself set aflame could cause such a conflagration.

Risky though it was, Leiyn released Steadfast's reins, drew an arrow from the quiver at her hip, and nocked it to her warbow. She strained to detect anyone moving within the shadows, but the forest was too dark, and they were moving too fast. 

Was the Lodge under attack? Or was this an accident? Either way, she would take no chances—

The world lurched.

Suddenly, Steadfast was no longer underneath her, and Leiyn flew. Her stallion shrieked. Men's voices shouted all around.

As she hit the ground, pain like the touch of forge-hot iron burned through her. 

A metallic taste flooded her mouth. Spitting, Leiyn tried to draw a breath, but her lungs wouldn't work. She threw all her will at moving her limbs, but only one arm and one leg responded. A ringing drowned out the cacophony that had filled the forest. Her vision was bright with stars.

She gasped for air again, and this time her lungs expanded.

Coughing, choking, Leiyn raised her head as her working hand reached for one of her long knives. Her senses crept back in. The men's voices were close, too close. She heard Isla curse, then scream.

Her fury awoke then.

A shadow ran toward her from the trees—a man, by his wordless bellow. Something glinting in his hands, and he raised it to bring it down on her.

It was impossible to move but somehow, she managed it, screaming with what it cost her. The man missed, stumbled, cursed, then raised his weapon to try again.

Leiyn stabbed. She felt the knife scrape against bone. The man let out a shriek that would have horrified her at any other time. Now, it was the sound of progress.

Tugging the blade free, she rolled away and heard the man grunt as he tried hitting her again. Another miss. He was still rising from his ill-aimed strike as she made it to her knees and thrust a second time.

A gurgling gasp. His hand dropped his weapon and grappled against her hand. Her lips curled in a snarl as she drew out the dagger and, rising to her feet, drove it through his neck.

As the man toppled over, Leiyn wheezed and looked around. Her right arm still hung useless. Every time she tried to move it or it swung with her momentum, pain shot into the base of her skull, blackening her vision. Dislocated, or possibly worse. Thankfully, her legs more or less still worked.

Shadows danced around her, then toward her. Seeing the shine of another blade catching on the firelight, Leiyn lurched to the side, swinging a counter. The man grunted as her knife caught his arm. Flames outlined him as he brought his weapon back around toward her. She backed away, tripped, nearly toppled over. The body of the first assailant lay in her way. 

But her attacker tripped as well. In a flash, Leiyn stabbed her knife through his eye, and the man fell limp to the ground.

She heard pounding footsteps behind her and whirled. Too late—something hit her like a charging buck. A shield, she realized as she smashed against the ground.

She felt the man kick her knife away, then the assailant hit her again with the shield, stunning her into silence. He leaned over her. 

"You murdering bitch," he growled. "I'll flay and gut you for this."

Her second knife was pinned beneath him, so she reached up and grabbed his hair. Rage erupted through her, but it was impotent in her feeble body. 

So, it turned its cutting knives inward.

Under the onslaught, her walls fell from around her mahia. She felt the life pulsing inside the man she held, life she desperately needed.

He jerked in her grip. Something cold and foreign entered her. A flood of torment broke through a moment after. Suddenly, she was pinned to the ground. She could hardly breathe for the weapon stabbed through her.

But she wouldn't lose. She wouldn't die.

As her hand clung desperately to her killer's hair, an unseen limb reached inside him and pulled free his esse.

Faintly, she heard him gasp, then shudder, then convulse. His body, heavy and crushing, slumped onto hers, driving the weapon further into her middle. Darkness edged at her vision, but she did not stop, could not. Like a parched horse at a trough, she drank greedily of his life. As energy poured through her, her pains eased and feeling returned to her limbs.

Some part of her recoiled at what was happening, at what she did, but that part was small. Survival, and the fury feeding that instinct, possessed her now.

As she drew the last drip of life from him, she shoved at the limp body. But she was still too weak and his sword, driven through her belly, held her in place. Whatever she had done with her mahia hadn't changed that.

With an effort that felt beyond her, she pushed him off enough to reveal the hilt of the weapon. 

A whimper escaped, yet she reached up with trembling arms and closed her blood-slicked hands over the sword's hilt. With the last of her strength, she yanked it free.

Darkness seized her and with jealous claws, it dragged her down.