Between (22 page)

The man with the black eyebrows, Barson, dismounted and began binding Duncan’s hands together at the wrists.

“What on earth are you doing?” Vivian demanded.

“He broke the law.”

“But he protected me,” she said, hearing the disbelief in her own voice. “The dragon came for me and he saved me. He’s burned. He needs a doctor. What the hell is wrong with you?”

In her memory she saw Arden’s body convulse, the eyes roll back in his head. He’d been burned. Clawed. Poisoned, maybe.

Ignoring the savaged half body of the horse, picking her way around the pools of sizzling dragon blood, Vivian crossed the clearing and knelt at Duncan’s side.

Splotches of black still clung to his face, sizzling, burning deeper into the flesh. She had sense enough not to touch it with her bare hands, had nothing to use to wipe it away. “Doesn’t anybody have medical supplies? Bandages? Anything?” She looked around the circle of men. They all looked back at her. Nobody moved.

She tore off her T-shirt then, aware of eyes on her bare skin, ignoring them. Balling the fabric up to protect her hands, she gently dabbed at the still-sizzling skin, blotting up the blood. Breath hissed out between Duncan’s teeth as he strangled a groan.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “we need to get this shit off you before it burns to the bone. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, My Lady.”

“Enough.” The black-browed man grabbed her from behind and dragged her upright and away. The twins picked up Duncan between them and thrust him up behind the saddle of one of the horses. For a minute she thought he’d topple off, but he shook his head as though to clear dizziness and gripped the horse with his knees.

Barson swung up in front of him.

A new hand on her shoulder, restraining her. “He must answer to the crime of shedding dragon blood,” Zee’s voice said, implacable.

Something inside Vivian broke from control. She turned and beat against his chest with her fists. “This is wrong. Let him go!”

When he pinioned her wrists she bit at his hands and took advantage of his distraction to kick at his shins, a useless gesture. The leather boots were heavy and hard, and she battered her own toes against them in futility.

“Stop this.” His hands were like iron.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She needed to wipe her nose. “The dragon is a monster—it tore that horse in half, would have killed Duncan. And me. He
saved
me. What kind of man are you? Too scared to even show your face.”

At her words, she felt him go very still. He released her.

And then he reached up and removed the hood.

Vivian gasped. The beautiful agate eyes were set in a mass of scars, old and new—thin white lines, garish red welts, fresh cuts still healing. They twisted his face, pulled his mouth into an uneven grimace. It gave him a sinister, lethal look.

“What’s the matter—not what you were expecting?” His voice was hard.

She couldn’t find words.

“Be careful what you ask for.” He turned away. “Erhard, Varlon, track the dragon. See if it lives or dies.”

Without a nod or a word, the twins rode off, bent low
over the necks of their horses, reading signs in the earth that Vivian couldn’t see.

“Liam—take the bird. The lady will ride behind me. We’ll barely reach the castle before dark.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Vivian said.

“Warlord—allow me.” Barson’s eyes raked over her half-naked body. She crossed her arms over her breasts and turned away from him.

The Warlord was also looking her over, but with a different expression. “You’re bleeding.”

“Scraped my back on a branch. Nothing serious.”

“They’ll smell you. Between you and Duncan, they’ll be flying in from the four winds.” He picked up her T-shirt from the dirt. It fell apart in his hands, disintegrating where the dragon blood had touched it. Tossing the rags aside with a grimace of distaste, he turned and dug in his saddlebags. “Here, put this on.”

She stood unmoving, stubborn and defiant.

The Warlord pulled a rough woolen tunic over her head, dressing her as though she were a child. It hung to her knees and was wide enough for two of her. Then he picked her up and placed her bodily behind the saddle, swinging up in front.

“We go now, and we ride fast.”

He kicked his horse into a gallop. Her arms were still trapped inside the tunic and she clutched hard with her knees, struggling to keep her balance until she could get her arms free, clinging to him for balance.

She’d been on a horse once, as a child, sitting tamely in the saddle while somebody else led her around the yard. This was another matter entirely, bouncing up and down, sliding from side to side, trying to get a grip on the stiff leather that denied her grasping fingers purchase. In the end, she was forced to wrap both arms around him and hold on.

The path fell into darkness. Her back hurt, her heart ached, fear ran behind her and above her. She felt like prey, hunted, harried. When they burst out of the woods and into
a wide field, the sun hung low on the horizon but the sky was still blue.

Above, three winged creatures soared in high, lazy circles. Vultures, she thought. Vultures with serpentine tails and four legs apiece.

No vulture known to man had ever been that size.

The Warlord spurred the horse to a faster pace, leaning forward over its neck. Vivian clung to him, watching the sky. It faded from blue to gray, with rose at the horizon. The winged creatures grew larger, circling ever closer in a downward spiral.

Across the plain, over the leather-clad shoulder that half-obstructed her view, a castle came into sight—a fortress of spires and turrets, a black silhouette against the sunset.

The horses stretched low over the ground, hooves flashing, necks white with foam. The men urged them on with shouts and curses.

Closer and closer circled the dragons.

Vivian could hear wings now, a great rhythmic beating. The castle was too far away; they would never make it in time. Men were visible on the watchtower and at the drawbridge, but they still looked small, improbable. A foul wind swirled around her. She was aware of a rushing sound above her head, felt something rake across her shoulders with a blow that threw her off balance. She caught a glimpse of a pale belly, a spiked tail, and sharp talons red with blood as she slid to one side.

Her hands slipped and clawed at Zee’s leather tunic. She was half on, half off the horse, a rag doll bouncing awkwardly at odds with the rhythm of the pounding hooves, and then she was falling, the ground coming up to meet her with a jarring force.

She tried to get up, to run or at least to crawl, but the breath had been driven from her lungs and she couldn’t move. Her shoulders were on fire. Lying there, looking straight up, the monstrous belly and bloody talons filled her vision. The dragon circled. The wings drew in as it began an earthward dive and then the Warlord’s face came between
her and the monster. His strong arms were beneath her and she was lifted, clasped against his broad breast, clinging desperately as he raced toward the castle.

A giant shadow followed them with a thunder of wings; they would never make it, never, and then it was cooler and dark and they were no longer moving. Men’s voices around her, the clatter of hooves on cobblestone. She tried to look around, but darkness veiled her eyes. She fought it. She would not go gently, damn it, would not—

would not—

S
uspended in an easy darkness, Vivian took care to remain perfectly still. If she moved—so much as the blink of an eye, the twitch of a finger—she would wake, and this above all things was to be avoided. A spark deep in her brain sputtered about danger and responsibility, but she held it at bay. In this state of semiconsciousness, she could believe that she was in her own bed, that when she opened her eyes she would see a familiar world—two square feet of kitchen counter, the stainless sink, the bookcase holding beloved and well-worn volumes, the spider plant hanging by the window, the computer whirring its predictable colored screen saver, the dream catcher hanging intact over the door.

Her old world, her old life.

A finger twitched despite her best effort and with that one tiny movement full sensation came crashing in. Red-hot spikes of pain drove into both shoulders. Her head pulsed with every beat of her heart. A line of fire traced itself down her back. Worse even than the pain was the sensation that she was spinning out of control without gravity or direction. She heard a muffled, murmuring sound, as of voices in the distance, and opened her eyes to see who was talking.

Swallowing back a wave of nausea, she squinted against too-bright light. The first thing she saw was Poe, standing
at attention, his black eyes fixed unwavering on her. He had the determined look of a penguin who has been standing still for quite some time and can continue to do so indefinitely.

“Still here, I see.” Her throat felt like sandpaper, her voice too loud in her own ears.

She lifted a hand to her throat. The pendant was there. So she was somewhere in Between—Surmise, most likely. That’s where the scarred man who was and was not Zee had been taking her.

Keeping her breaths shallow so as to move as little as possible, feeling the cold sweat slick on her forehead, she lay perfectly still, listening.

No sign of anyone about, but still she heard the sound of distant voices. Without moving her head, she shifted her eyes from side to side to take stock of the place where she found herself.

She was lying on a four-poster bed at the center of a round chamber. The walls were stone, hung with hand-woven tapestries. Heavy wooden chairs, piled with silken cushions in shades of indigo and scarlet, were set about the room in groups of twos and threes. Overhead arched a high ceiling, painted in a style reminiscent of Michelangelo. It took a moment, sick and dizzy as she was, to recognize that this artist’s winged creatures were not angels and demons but vividly depicted long-necked beasts. She forced herself up onto her elbows to see better.

The room spun faster and then went dark. When next she opened her eyes, a woman stood beside the bed, a cool hand on her forehead.

“Easy, child.”

A sweet face, thin and deeply lined. Gray hair plaited into a long, thick braid. “I’ve fed your bird. He had a long soak in the bath and then insisted in perching there on your feet and staring you awake. I told him you needed more time to rest, but he doesn’t listen well.”

Words still felt far away, and Vivian didn’t answer.

The woman walked away, then returned with a little
wooden cart on wheels. Arrayed neatly on a clean cloth was some sort of green paste in an earthenware bowl, bandages, scissors, a basin of water.

“Who are you?”

“I am Nonette, and I am a healer. You must rest—I thought you dead.”

“My head hurts.”

“I’m sure. I’ll give you a tea for that and the nausea in a minute. It was the dragon poison I thought had done for you. I’ve never seen anybody survive that. The Warlord insisted that I try.”

The Warlord. He had come back for her when she fell, had carried her to safety at risk of his own life. Had arranged for a healer. To what purpose? Surely not because he valued her as a woman; he’d made that clear enough. Duncan had said something about sacrifices.

The healer’s capable hands removed bloody bandages from both of Vivian’s shoulders and applied a green paste that cooled the fiery pain on contact.

“Pierced both shoulders with his claws. I can’t imagine why he didn’t just carry you away. Hurts, I imagine, but they’re healing at an unusual rate.”

“The dragon?”

“I’d forgotten—you’re not from here. The dragons have poison spurs on their talons. Once they pierce your flesh, you die. Well, most people die. You seem to have some sort of immunity. Now—I’m going to help you to sit up, and then you’re going to drink the tea I’ve made for you. That will ease the headache and the nausea. Ready?”

It wasn’t what she’d tried to ask. She wanted to know what had happened to the dragons, the one that Duncan had wounded, the one that attacked her. It would wait. She bit her lip and endured as the healer pulled her upright. Pain sparked through her body—the scrape down her back, the muscles of thighs and arms, but this was nothing to the pounding and commotion in her head. The whispering of distant voices went on, and she grew increasingly worried that they were a product of her own deranged mind.

“Keep breathing; it will pass,” Nonette said.

In a moment the pain eased to a tolerable level, although the voices continued. Nonette propped her up with pillows and handed her a cup of something hot and steaming.

“There are things you will want to ask,” the woman said. “Drink. Ask. I will answer as I’m able.”

Vivian sipped at the tea. It was both fragrant and bitter, laced with sweetness. Her stomach settled nearly at once. She thought she might ask about the voices, took another look at the sweet, sincere face, and changed her mind.

“Are the others all right? The Warlord, and Barson, and Duncan?”

Nonette turned her back and busied herself folding bandages. “The dragon attacked only you.”